Malone. "So where were you on Monday afternoon?" Frankie said in the furious, hard voice of an interrogator. "And where were you Wednesday afternoon when I called?
And who is George Dillow and Stanley Cohen? You fucking bastard!" he said, and slapped Malone on his cheek and pushed him back against the wall. And Malone thought to himself, with the cool detachment of a man who has just been hurled from a car wreck and sits on the hillside wondering why he isn't in his bed at home: Ah, this is how it happens. They beat you up, they are jealous. Love-nest slaying... For he had always wondered what would happen if Frankie ever turned on him the temper he had shown the day a grocer refused to cash his check, or the afternoon he learned on the telephone that a friend in New Jersey had turned other friends in to a narcotics agent. "Man, he is dead," Frankie had said. "He is going to find himself in the river by tomorrow," and Malone had listened, in disbelief. But here was Frankie now, slapping him again and again on the face, shoving him against the wall and kicking him and punching his ribs. He beat Malone up and Malone, realizing an explanation was impossible, and so heartsick he could not, would not strike back, ran. He ran downstairs into the warm, empty streets, and kept running as best he could with a cracked rib till he stopped in a dark alley near Bond Street and sat down and coughed, and wept, and waited till he had stopped shaking. Then he got up and continued walking north, until he came to a crowded part of the Village, with movie houses, stores still open, and restaurants filled with smiling people behind plants and plate glass windows. He sat down on a stoop. He had no place to go, and he ached in several places. He sat there oblivious to the throngs walking past him on West Tenth Street.
And then someone caught his eye: a wigged duchess emerging from the back door of a warehouse in which the Magic, Fantasy, and Dreams Ball was just breaking up. "Help me," said Malone. "My dear," said
Sutherland after taking one look at his terrified face, "the house of Guiche shall never refuse the protection of its manor to the poorest of its subjects," and he assisted Malone into a cab pulled up at the curb. They rode in silence for some time as Malone panted beside Sutherland, his legs vibrating like windshield wipers. Neither spoke. Sutherland offered Malone a cigarette, Malone shook his head, and Sutherland smoked in silence, glancing at Malone from time to time in the light of passing streets as they floated north. Time had passed since he had stood outside the bookstore in Georgetown, peering in at volumes on the French cathedrals, and Malone no longer looked as if he were a young man peering into a bookstore in Georgetown on a summer night; he looked more like the fellow who had just run in off the playing fields in New Hampshire, his eyes brilliant—a rather exhausted soccer player now, his face scratched from the fray—the earring hidden behind a cluster of golden curls. Malone would always have that ambiguous look, half-fine, half-rough, and it so intrigued Sutherland that when the taxi slowed at his block of Madison Avenue, he turned to Malone and said: "Forgive me for inquiring, but—are you for rent?"
And Malone, as polite as this stranger who sat smoking a Gauloise beside him under a white wig of the seventeenth century, in brocade and rhinestones, smiled weakly and said: "Thank you, no." For he was so softhearted he hated refusing anyone. Rejecting another person upset him far more than being refused himself—and he was one of the few homosexuals in New York who went home with people because he did not wish to hurt their feelings. "I'm recovering from a lovers' brawl," he added. "Unlucky in love."
"Then come to the Carlyle," said Sutherland, extending his arm, "and let's have a drink. I always go to the Carlyle to rub an ice cube, bathed in Pernod, on my bruises. And then go dancing at the Twelfth
And who is George Dillow and Stanley Cohen? You fucking bastard!" he said, and slapped Malone on his cheek and pushed him back against the wall. And Malone thought to himself, with the cool detachment of a man who has just been hurled from a car wreck and sits on the hillside wondering why he isn't in his bed at home: Ah, this is how it happens. They beat you up, they are jealous. Love-nest slaying... For he had always wondered what would happen if Frankie ever turned on him the temper he had shown the day a grocer refused to cash his check, or the afternoon he learned on the telephone that a friend in New Jersey had turned other friends in to a narcotics agent. "Man, he is dead," Frankie had said. "He is going to find himself in the river by tomorrow," and Malone had listened, in disbelief. But here was Frankie now, slapping him again and again on the face, shoving him against the wall and kicking him and punching his ribs. He beat Malone up and Malone, realizing an explanation was impossible, and so heartsick he could not, would not strike back, ran. He ran downstairs into the warm, empty streets, and kept running as best he could with a cracked rib till he stopped in a dark alley near Bond Street and sat down and coughed, and wept, and waited till he had stopped shaking. Then he got up and continued walking north, until he came to a crowded part of the Village, with movie houses, stores still open, and restaurants filled with smiling people behind plants and plate glass windows. He sat down on a stoop. He had no place to go, and he ached in several places. He sat there oblivious to the throngs walking past him on West Tenth Street.
And then someone caught his eye: a wigged duchess emerging from the back door of a warehouse in which the Magic, Fantasy, and Dreams Ball was just breaking up. "Help me," said Malone. "My dear," said
Sutherland after taking one look at his terrified face, "the house of Guiche shall never refuse the protection of its manor to the poorest of its subjects," and he assisted Malone into a cab pulled up at the curb. They rode in silence for some time as Malone panted beside Sutherland, his legs vibrating like windshield wipers. Neither spoke. Sutherland offered Malone a cigarette, Malone shook his head, and Sutherland smoked in silence, glancing at Malone from time to time in the light of passing streets as they floated north. Time had passed since he had stood outside the bookstore in Georgetown, peering in at volumes on the French cathedrals, and Malone no longer looked as if he were a young man peering into a bookstore in Georgetown on a summer night; he looked more like the fellow who had just run in off the playing fields in New Hampshire, his eyes brilliant—a rather exhausted soccer player now, his face scratched from the fray—the earring hidden behind a cluster of golden curls. Malone would always have that ambiguous look, half-fine, half-rough, and it so intrigued Sutherland that when the taxi slowed at his block of Madison Avenue, he turned to Malone and said: "Forgive me for inquiring, but—are you for rent?"
And Malone, as polite as this stranger who sat smoking a Gauloise beside him under a white wig of the seventeenth century, in brocade and rhinestones, smiled weakly and said: "Thank you, no." For he was so softhearted he hated refusing anyone. Rejecting another person upset him far more than being refused himself—and he was one of the few homosexuals in New York who went home with people because he did not wish to hurt their feelings. "I'm recovering from a lovers' brawl," he added. "Unlucky in love."
"Then come to the Carlyle," said Sutherland, extending his arm, "and let's have a drink. I always go to the Carlyle to rub an ice cube, bathed in Pernod, on my bruises. And then go dancing at the Twelfth
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