Blood Count. Jack Batten
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are you, anyway, mister?” Daryl slanted in my direction. I slanted in his. It was tough to face all the way around in the bucket seats. “What’s your name?”
“Crang. I’m a criminal lawyer.”
“Mr. Crang, first off, I want you to know I’ve been saved.”
“So far there’s nothing established you need to be saved from.”
“By my lord, Jesus Christ.”
“Oh, that kind of saving.”
Daryl’s bulging cheeks glowed pink. “Have you accepted Jesus into your heart?” he asked me.
“I know that’s a metaphor, Daryl, and metaphorically speaking, the heart is about filled to capacity.”
The pink in Daryl’s cheeks stayed put. It was his natural colouring, not the flush of fervour.
“Jesus guided me away from the paths of sin,” Daryl said.
“Are we talking business now? Is that sin as in Purple Zinnia?”
“Mr. Crang, I am not a practising homosexual.” Daryl’s voice tripped on the last word. “I was reaching for help, and Jesus took my hand.”
“Hand isn’t the piece of anatomy you need to worry about, Daryl.”
We hoisted ourselves out of the Corvette and walked into the square. It had a collection of spreading maples and some benches that the city had installed. We sat on a bench that faced the line of nice, old Georgian-style buildings on the square’s north side.
“Whose life is it you were talking about saving back in the parking lot?” Daryl asked.
“Maybe yours.”
“Just because I might’ve gone to the Purple Zinnia?”
“Good start, Daryl. Is it a given you’ve had drinks at the Zinnia bar?”
Daryl fingered one of his earlobes with his right hand. “Another fellow on the team took me to that particular bar. The people there were awful nice, and it surely to goodness beat going back to Bramalea by myself. I’m a single person, Mr. Crang, and I didn’t see anything wrong with seeking a little fellowship.”
“Hold up a bit, Daryl. Another Blue Jay is a Purple Zinnia frequenter?”
“Not anymore. He went free agent last spring. St. Louis signed him. Five million over three years.”
“Very impressive, and I’m sure you’ll be in the same bracket any season now, Daryl. But onto the Zinnia, you realized it was a gay spot?”
Daryl’s right hand went back to his earlobe. “I never met any homosexuals back home in Emporia, Mr. Crang,” he said tentatively.
“Understood, Daryl.”
“So, no, I didn’t know at first that those nice men at the Purple Zinnia were homosexuals. And I pass no judgment on them now, Mr. Crang, even though I have learned from my Bible that homosexuality is a grievous sin against human nature. I admit to you here and now that those men, Ian Argyll and the rest, accepted me in friendship, and I felt very comfortable in their company. I did at the time, yes, sir.”
“I take it you haven’t seen much of the Zinnia crowd lately, that’s the implication, Daryl?”
“I have not.”
“When did you withdraw your patronage?”
“Stop going there? When the Yankees were at the SkyDome for a weekend series, the third week of last September.”
“Fixed in your memory, is it, Daryl?”
Daryl started to go for his ear again, stopped, folded both hands in his lap, and leaned closer to me.
“It was that weekend, on the Sunday, I committed to Jesus, Mr. Crang.” Daryl’s tone wasn’t unctuous, but it showed a marked Jerry Falwell influence. “The Yankees were in town, and on the morning before the game, I don’t know what it was, maybe a small and blessed miracle, Mr. Crang, I joined the Christians on our team in the chapel at the SkyDome. I have not looked back since, and sorry as I am to say so, Mr. Crang, I could not reconcile my new faith with the ways of those who befriended me at the Purple Zinnia.”
“It’d put you in a moral pickle, Daryl, I appreciate that.”
“It surely would.”
“In the meantime, though, you’d had a year of socializing with the Zinnia crowd?”
Daryl’s hand made a return visit to his ear. “That is true, and no getting around it.”
“And was Ian Argyll a particular bud of yours?”
“He was a friend of everybody’s.”
“Including yours?”
“Ian was as kind and generous as any man on earth.”
“That’s what might have got him dead, the kindness of a friend.”
“What are you telling me, Mr. Crang?”
“You’re aware of the cause of Ian’s death, Daryl?”
“It was in the death notices in the papers. AIDS. Just terrible.”
“Put it together, Daryl. The way most gay guys get AIDS is from other gay guys.”
“You are saying from somebody else at the Purple Zinnia?”
“Could be.”
Daryl’s lower lip quivered.
“This brings us to the crunch question, Daryl,” I said. “Sorry to be blunt, but did you and Ian, your good and kind friend Ian, did the two of you exchange bodily fluids?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Sex, Daryl. Did you and Ian have sex together?”
“No, sir.” Daryl did everything to register his indignation except stamp his big foot. “We did not do such a thing.”
“You see why I’ve got to ask?”
“Ask me? I don’t see that at all.”
“Because some friend of Ian’s may be walking around with AIDS.”
“It is not myself, Mr. Crang.”
Daryl’s indignation had wound down in a hurry. Again the lower lip was quivering, and he generally looked miserable.
“Ian was a fine gentleman,” Daryl said with a small tremor in his voice.
“Agreed.”
“I truly mourn his passing,” Daryl said. The tremor in his voice was getting close to earthquake status.
“Uh, Daryl, you okay?”
Daryl looked at me. “What do you think, Mr. Crang?”
“Yeah, right.” Daryl’s hangdog expression, the fault in his voice, was beginning to make me feel like a heel. “Tell you what, Daryl, why don’t we reschedule the rest of this chat for a later date? You know, let you get a grip on the emotions, one thing and another?”
“I’d appreciate that, Mr. Crang.”
“Sure.” I patted one of Daryl’s massive shoulders. It felt hot. “You bet.”
I stood up.
“Get back to you later, Daryl.”
Daryl didn’t say anything, and I walked out of the park’s east side without looking back.
Chapter Seven
Bart the Bulge was in the papers, too. Annie found him.
“Where does that rate on the scale of revolting?” she asked me.