by Josh Lanyon
I waited, my gaze wandering over the manicured lawn, the pool glittering in the sunshine, the apricot and coral rose bushes trembling in the wind.
“You remember that little friend of yours from high school? Oh what was his name? Well, he’s dead.”
“I know.”
Her eyes went wide like a startled fawn. “How can you know? I only heard from Jane Quinn this morning and she’d only talked to Annette Penick last night.”
I’d forgotten the maternal communication system, even more complex and infallible than Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars.
“He worked for me, Lisa,” I reminded her patiently.
“Worked for you? When?”
“Up until he ... died.”
“In Buffalo?”
“You’re thinking of Sioux City.”
“I am? I’m sure Jane said Buffalo.”
“It was Sioux City, but he’s been living in West Hollywood for the past nine months.”
My mother bit her lip, looking adorably perplexed. “Darling, what are you babbling about? This happened a couple of months ago -- and he died in Buffalo. Oh, Adrien, you’ll never believe! At least ... ” She paused, looking troubled. “Darling, you don’t wear dresses, do you?”
I choked on my Earl Grey. “I’m not a transvestite, no. Neither was Robert.”
“Who?”
“Robert Hersey. The friend who died.”
“Robert Hersey is dead?” Her tea cup hit the saucer with a clatter. She gaped at me. “Darling, when? That’s horrific. Why you were such chums. Whatever happened? Not ... .” Her voice sank. “AIDS?”
Sidetracked, I tried to explain, leaving out the awful parts, which didn’t leave much to say. Lisa was appalled and wanted to know all the awful parts. I did manage to avoid telling her I was the police’s favorite suspect, but with all the hedging it took awhile before I remembered the original point of our conversation.
“Lisa, you said another friend of mine had died?”
She hit mental rewind and her eyes grew saucer-like once more. “Oh! Yes. In Buffalo.” She gazed at me sympathetically. “I shouldn’t laugh because it’s really quite tragic. What if it was suicide? Think of his poor mother. It’s just that it’s so undignified. And what a spooky coincidence! Skippy or Corky or Whatever-His-Name was Corday fell out the window of some posh hotel. Twelve stories down in a polka dot cocktail frock and white pumps. White pumps, darling, and that was weeks past Labor Day!”
Chapter Five
“The police were here,” Angus informed me when I got back to the shop that afternoon.
My heart sank. “Again? Why? What did they want?”
Angus mumbled something. I snapped nervously, “What? Can’t you speak up?”
“There was just one of them this time. A Detective Regan, I think.”
“Shit. What does he want now?” This was merely a rhetorical whine because Angus clearly had no idea.
“Well, is he coming back? Am I supposed to call him?” Is there a warrant out for my arrest?
Angus shrugged. Not really his problem. His problem was those tiny agitated twins of me mirrored in the lens of his glasses.
I headed upstairs and Angus called softly, “Some flowers came for you.”
The flowers lay outside the door to my flat in one of those long white florist boxes.
I don’t get many flowers. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten flowers. I pulled the lid off and gawked. Black hollyhocks and a dozen blood-red roses, perfect to the last thorn -- which pricked my thumb. I sucked on my thumb and gingerly lifted out the card.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late ...
No signature.
For one crazy moment the thought flitted through my brain that Riordan had left them. Don’t ask me why. He didn’t look like a hearts and flowers kind of guy, not even for his best gal (of whom, I’m sure, he had many).
The roses were beautiful and no doubt expensive, but as I beheld them, nestled in their silvery tissue, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something about the black hollyhocks and the black satin ribbon looked funereal. And a handwritten unsigned card? Was that romantic or plain old sinister?
Goin’ to the chapel and I’m gonna get buried?
I tried to think of someone who might send me flowers. Anyone. I couldn’t think of a single person I was on flowery terms with -- let alone flowers with cryptic notes.
Downstairs the cash register rang; I heard the rustle of paper and Angus thanking a customer for their business. I heard the shop bell jingle.
A simple explanation occurred: a screw-up at the florist’s. Flowers meant for Robert’s funeral had been sent in care of me.
Of course. It made perfect sense. What else could it be?
But even while I assured myself that this was the only plausible explanation, I felt uneasy. Because if it wasn’t a screw-up and the roses weren’t from anyone I knew ...?
Nah. Too far-fetched.
Unlocking the door to my flat, I carried the box inside and dropped the roses in the trash bin. I don’t care that much about flowers, really. And these were a little too elegiac.
Or maybe I was getting superstitious in my old age. First Robert’s murder, and now this gruesome coincidence of Rusty -- Richard Corday -- dying in Buffalo.
Rusty. I hadn’t thought of him in years. He was the first of our clique to come out -- and what a misery his adolescent life had become. I hoped like hell he hadn’t jumped. I hoped like hell the last fifteen years of his life had been happier than the first.
There was a small sound behind me. I whirled to find Angus standing in the doorway to my kitchen.
“Jesus Christ! What are you doing?”
No doubt he heard the fright in my voice. No doubt people on the street did. He raised his hands apologetically. “Sorry, man,” he said quietly. “I forgot to tell you. Your friend’s been calling all day.”
“What friend?”
“Mr. La Pierra.”
Claude. I relaxed. “Right. Thanks.”
He continued to regard me. Then he looked at the box of flowers in the trash. He looked back at me.
“Hay fever,” I offered. “The antihistamines make me jittery.” I smiled tentatively but Angus did not respond. He nodded and edged out of the kitchen as though afraid to turn his back on me.
I locked the door after him and sat down to call Claude.
“Where the hell have you been?” Claude greeted me, sounding less French Quarter and more South Central than usual. “You led them straight to me, you -- you -- imbecile!”
“What are you talking about?”
“The one! The cops! They were here. Here in my restaurant.” He made it sound like the Huns were marching on Paris.
“I told you they had your letters. How long did you think it would take to put a name to ‘Black Beauty’?”
There was a silence filled by the background noise of voices and clanging pots and pans, and then Claude said spitefully, “Ha! And as to that, ma belle, he was asking as much about you as me, your blue knight in shining Armor All.”
“Who? Detective Riordan? What do you mean? What kinds of things was he asking?”
“Personal things!” shrieked Claude. “Who, what, where, when, and how often! I don’t trust him, that cop. He’s up to something.”
I bit back a flare of panic and said, “It’s normal procedure, right? They have to check up on everybody who knew Robert.”
Claude made a sound that in English translates to “Paugh!” “There’s something about that dick. Dick -- that’s the operative word. Yeah, I know him from somewhere. ...”
He brooded without speaking for a moment. I wondered if the cops were tapping either or both of our phones?
“Claude, who was Robert seeing? Who did he go to meet that night?”
He put his hand over the mouthpiece and yelled unintelligibly before returning to the line to say in a surly voice, “How should I know?”
“You know,” I coaxed. “You alw
ays know.”
“People tell me things,” Claude admitted grudgingly. “I hear things.”
“He had started seeing someone, hadn’t he?”
“Someone? He wasn’t a one-man woman, Adrien. He was a slut.”
The bitterness in Claude’s voice took me aback. Had it been serious on Claude’s side?
I persisted slowly, “Robert left in the middle of an argument with me to go meet someone. Someone he couldn’t -- or wouldn’t -- put off.”
Claude’s laugh was shrill. “And he winds up doing the Ginsu with a trick in an alley. It slices, it dices, and that’s not all.”
For a second I wasn’t sure what Claude meant. Was he joking or was there an underlying message? Did he know about the chess piece Robert’s killer had left?
I said, “Was Robert with a trick? Or was he hustling?”
“Suddenly I’m the expert? The girl liked to fuck, mon ange. He wasn’t particular.”
“He needed money. Was he tricking?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said he was with a trick. Why? You must have had some reason.”
Silence.
“Stay out of it, Adrien. Let the cops handle it,” Claude said finally.
“You just said you don’t trust the cops.”
“I know what I said. Better jail, than dead. N’est-ce pas?”
I opened my mouth but the phone disconnected. Slowly I replaced the receiver.
I sat there staring at my grandmother’s violet sprig-pattern china gleaming behind the cupboard windows. A trick, Claude said. I didn’t think so. It didn’t fit with Robert’s mood in the days before his death. He had been happy -- hell, gay. And secretive.
Robert loved secrets. His own and other people’s. And he wasn’t above dropping hints. It amused him to watch people sweat. That was one reason I thought he might take it a step further (admittedly a big step) and offer to exchange silence for money. The trouble was I couldn’t imagine Rob privy to any information worth paying for -- let alone worth killing for. Homosexuality just wasn’t what it used to be in the Golden Age of mystery writing.
Why had he come back to the Blue Parrot that night?
Would it have changed anything if I had still been waiting?
Why had he come back? Had his date bailed? Had they argued? Or had Robert changed his mind before he ever got there?
Why hadn’t he come back to the shop if he wanted to talk to me?
I realized that I would never know what Robert had wanted to tell me.
Depressed, I went into the bedroom, lost the Hugo Boss blazer and the kicks, changed into black sweats. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror I thought, if you died tomorrow who would grieve for you?
Whatever Robert had been and done, he had people to grieve for him. Not just the usual suspects, but children. Hell, even an ex-wife.
Tara had caught me up as I was leaving the funeral.
She avoided my eyes, scraping a grass divot from her high heel. “Adrien, look -- I apologize. I shouldn’t have said all that. I’d been drinking. I never could handle it.”
After a moment I said, “Sure. You were upset. I understand.”
“It was just a phase Bob was going through. He was upset about a lot of things. But he still loved me. He told me that the last time we talked. I know we would have worked it out eventually. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You were a good friend in your way.”
“Forget it, Tara.”
She looked up then, her hands fluttering helplessly as though she wanted to make a gesture but didn’t know how. I moved to hug her. Dodged her hat. We embraced awkwardly, stepped back. I looked at the kids: Rob’s kids. The boy, Bobby Jr., was one of those golden-curled adorable tykes.
Holding his hand was a cherub-like little girl, equally golden-curled and rose-lipped. I could never remember her name. Twin pairs of green eyes gazed up at me. Rob’s eyes gazing at me. I felt unutterably sad. I wanted to do something for them.
“Tara is there anything --?”
She shook her head quickly. “It’s sweet of you, Adrien, but no. There’s nothing. Not now.” Behind the veil her pale eyes were unwavering and tearless.
I had never understood her. Never understood what Rob saw in her. Even back in high school she had been a total mystery to me. Granted, all girls had been a mystery -- and pretty much still were.
Remembering the adolescent Tara reminded me of Rusty.
I dragged out the storage trunk in the spare room and began rummaging through it: photo albums, letters from Mel (why did I keep this stuff?), half-finished manuscripts, college magazines, and finally, bottom of the chest, my high school yearbook. Gold script on blue vinyl lettered out: West Valley Academy. “West End” the public school kids called it.
I wasn’t sure what I was searching for as I glanced over the faded inscriptions, trite then, but sort of poignant now. Good luck in college. Let’s stay friends 4-ever. Luv, Brooke. Who the hell was Brooke? What had happened to all these “Friends 4-ever?” Mostly I recalled my senior year as a panicked struggle to catch up while my mother and her Greek chorus of doctors waited in the wings for my anticipated collapse.
Memories wafted out of those glossy black and white pages like the scent of formaldehyde in biology class. I studied a photo of Rob. This was one of those carefully staged candid shots taken in the journalism club. Tara stood in the background watching Rob pretend to load film in his camera. I shut the yearbook with a snap and went downstairs.
“If you want to take the rest of the day, go ahead,” I told Angus.
He shrugged. “I don’t mind if you want to work in the back. It’s pretty dead.”
I must have winced because he whispered, “Sorry.”
I looked at the book he was reading: The Encyclopedia of Demonology.
Catching my gaze, Angus muttered, “It’s for my thesis.”
The hell you say. I opened my mouth, decided I didn’t really want to know, and went into my office. Sitting at the desk, I thumbed through the mail for the past week. It all seemed to be addressed to someone else. Someone who gave a damn.
The phone rang next to my elbow. I ignored it. It stopped ringing abruptly.
“Phone call for you,” Angus yelled from the store floor, and I nearly fell out of my chair. The good news was that there was nothing permanently wrong with his vocal cords. Though we probably needed to work on his phone skills.
I picked up.
Silence.
“Can I help you?”
Click. Dial tone.
I shrugged. Hung up.
So what was my next move? Robert was dead and the police thought I had killed him. At the very least they were convinced I knew something about his death.
Maybe the police would figure it all out. That’s what they did for a living, right? Stranger things had happened.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to be a bit proactive here. Detective Riordan believed I knew more than I thought I did -- assuming that whole tête-à-tête hadn’t been some kind of trap.
I opened a drawer and pulled out a pad of legal paper. Great. Good start. I picked up a pen, neatly numbered one through ten. Okay. First thing ...
I eyed the blank page. Just in time I stopped myself from writing DO LAUNDRY.
Focus.
After a moment I drew a chess piece. A pawn. Was that Freudian or Jungian or plain doodling? Where the hell did one begin? Who would want to kill Robert? Tara? Claude? It was preposterous. Yet someone had murdered him.
Most murders are not committed by strangers. But I couldn’t help coming back to the theory of a random act of violence. Someone who hated gays in general? Someone who left a “queen” as a calling card? Maybe even a serial killer. Although in that case where was the series of victims?
The police were investigating Robert’s death as an isolated event -- and me as the prime suspect.
Or were they?
What had Riordan been up to showing me that chess piece? Was I supposed t
o betray myself with my sinister knowledge of advances, gambits, jeopardy and end game? Was I supposed to turn white as the plastic queen and confess all?
Or did he really want my help?
That evening I was watching Frenchman’s Creek-- is it just me or does Basil Rathbone look hot in that long curled wig? -- eating a bowl of Apple Crunch Muselix when Riordan returned.
He was on his own, wearing Levi’s and a white Henley, and looking good enough to eat.
“I take it this isn’t a social call,” I said as he followed me up the stairs to my flat. “I won’t offer you a beer.”
“You can offer me a beer,” he said. He leaned against the kitchen counter studying the grape leaf stencil border on the opposite wall. He crowded my kitchen -- and it was a large kitchen. He made me self-conscious, which was annoying as hell.
I got a couple of Harp beers and earned the first flicker of approval I had seen from the man. Our fingers brushed exchanging the frosty bottle. There was a snap of static electricity. I’m surprised it wasn’t spontaneous combustion.
“Can I sit?” Riordan indicated the table.
“Sure. Where are my manners? I was just waiting for you to arrest me.”
He shot me a sardonic look and sat down, tilting the chair back on its legs.
“So what have you got for me?”
“I ... beg your pardon?” I think I actually blushed, that’s the direction my thoughts were going.
Riordan’s dark brows shot up in that supercilious way. “You’re supposed to be helping save your sorry ass by figuring out the connection between Hersey and that chess piece. Remember?”
“I told you what I thought it meant.” I leaned against the fridge. I felt safer on my feet when I was around him.
“That’s it? Queen? You think we’re facing some chess-playing fag-hating Mr. Stranger Danger?”
I shrugged. “What do you want? The history of chess? It’s a game of intellect played between two people. Each player has sixteen pieces. So if you’re dealing with a serial killer maybe he plans on killing sixteen people. Or sixty-four. There are sixty-four squares on a game board.”
“We’re not dealing with a serial killer.”
“How do you know? Maybe Robert was the first.”
