Light Before Day

by Christopher Rice

  Her lips tensed and pulled back from her teeth, and from the look in her eye I could tell she didn't like any of her choices. "Does the name Corey Howard mean anything to you?"

  "Corey..."

  "Corey McCormick," I corrected myself.

  She got to her feet, as if she needed to put some distance between herself and the name I had just spoken. "Corey was blackmailing Danny?" she asked.

  "Sort of."

  "Get up."

  Elena's apartment had a large living room with a picture window that, fortunately for me, looked out onto the street. Above a white sectional sofa with torn stitching was a massive portrait depicting a handsome Latina woman reclining on a white chaise longue in a white pants suit with a shock of white in her cascade of black hair.

  I walked my skateboard-wielding friend to the butcher-block table, pulled his cuffed wrists behind one of the chairs, and sat him down. Elena was in the kitchen frantically preparing an ice packet. I wasn't sure which one of us it was for. The kid's right eye would be swollen shut in a few hours. His top lip was busted, but the blood had already dried. I hadn't managed to check myself out in a mirror.

  Elena returned and thrust a Ziploc bag full of ice cubes at me. I took it and stared at her. She pointed to her right temple and I followed her cue. I heard a dull whir and realized it wasn't coming from my head but from a white noise machine behind the closed door at the end of the apartment's hallway. Melissa Brady's desire to shut out reality included appliances as well as prescriptions.

  I reached behind the kid's back and dug in his back pocket for a wallet. He squirmed and groaned in his throat. "Let me see your ID," I said.

  He mumbled something, and I asked him to repeat it. "My sock," he muttered, kicking his right foot against the floor. I pulled out a credible-looking ID that told me his name was Philip Percy, that he was twenty-three years old and lived in Westlake Village.

  "Your real ID," I said. I squatted in front of the kid. Up close, I could see his soft adolescent facial features: a dull jaw that would harden in a few years, naturally smooth skin, and a small rounded nose. But he was tall and built, just like the guy who had been following Nate the night before.

  "Glenn has it."

  "Glenn was driving the van?" I asked. Elena tried to cut in. I held up my palm to stop her.

  "Where is Glenn going right now?"

  The kid didn't answer.

  "You work for Scott Koffler, don't you?" I asked him.

  His eyes drifted shut and he sucked in his lower lip. I sank down into his level. "I know how Scott works, all right?" I said as sympathetically as I could. "I know the minute he gets you in his hot tub he starts feeding you a line about how you need his protection. 'Cause, after all, if the kids back at school find out you've been going to parties in West Hollywood with a bunch of fags, then your life is over, right? Your new friends may be rich, they may even be famous, but they're still fags."

  "Fuck you," the kid whispered.

  "I need to know what's going on!" Elena shouted. "Right now."

  I looked at her. "Daniel Brady made a trip to West Hollywood last week. This kid's boss was his escort, and I think the guy took some photographs that he e-mailed to Melissa on Friday night."

  The breath went out of her. "Jesus."

  "Does any of this make sense to you?" I asked.

  "Not enough."

  A portable phone sat in its cradle on the kitchen counter, with a second handset on the end table next to the sofa. I grabbed one and handed it to Elena. Then I turned to the kid, holding the phone up between us as if it were a weapon. "We're going to call your boss right now," I said.

  "Oh, yeah?" the kid rasped.

  "Or else I'll call the police and everyone back at school will find out why you were arrested and who your new friends are."

  His bruised lips sputtered. I gave him another minute for my threat to sink in. When I asked, he said Scott was at home in Palmdale, and I told him what to say when I put the phone to his ear. I dialed the number the kid gave me. I turned and saw that Elena had already brought her handset to her ear, her eyes fixed fiercely on mine.

  After two rings, someone answered without speaking. I put the phone to the kid's ear. "I'm so sorry, Scott," the kid whined. "Everything went wrong. I'm so sorry."

  I jerked the phone away from the kid's face and brought it to mine. "You sent two teenagers to abduct me in broad daylight," I said.

  I heard nothing but silence and maybe breathing from the other end.

  "You've fucked up twice now, Scott. Your little stunt with Nate Bain put me right on your fat ass. Now you sent these two kids to abduct me. One of them's right here and ready to wet his pants."

  "They were supposed to escort you."

  "To where?"

  "I thought you and I should talk," he said. I said nothing, to lead him to say more. "You've got nothing on me with Philip there. You know what I do, Adam. It's rewarding, but there are risks involved. That's why I make sure I always have an insurance policy. It's very simple. I take pictures. And there are two people in every one. Both people have reputations to protect.

  Including little Philip."

  "You blackmail your own customers?" I said.

  "I haven't had to. Yet."

  Considering that Koffler furnished his young charges with fake IDs that said they were of age, it wasn't blackmail we were talking about. It was extortion.

  "Did you blackmail Daniel Brady?" I asked.

  Silence. I looked to Elena. She was hunched forward over the table, the phone to her ear. She shoved her bangs up with one palm.

  "Why don't we meet?" Koffler asked.

  "Give me something first."

  "One A.M.," he said flatly. "Plummer Park, just off Fountain."

  "Who hired you to bring Daniel Brady to West Hollywood?" I didn't expect him to answer, but I hoped he would say something that would convince Elena Castillo that I was telling her the truth. I was confident that it was Billy Hatfill who had hired him on Corey's behalf.

  "You got me fired," I said. "You came to my apartment and said shit about my mother.

  You're having Nate Bain followed, and today you tried to have these kids beat the shit out of me.

  Daniel Brady was a special job for you. And you're scared shitless that your boss is going to find out that you exposed him while he was in West Hollywood."

  "Let Philip go," he said.

  "Who hired you, Scott?"

  "You first," he said. "Where the hell is he? I haven't been paid."

  My throat closed up and I had to focus on my feet to remind myself where I was. Jimmy's problem with my new theory had been that he didn't believe Billy Hatfill would hire a loser like Scott Koffler. Jimmy was right. I cursed myself for not having seen it sooner.

  "Corey hired you," I heard myself say.

  "Super Twink, Mr. Star Reporter, scores again," Scott murmured. "But that's just the half of it. Tell Philip to call me in ten minutes, and I'll see you tonight."

  I put the phone to the kid's ear and told him to repeat the instruction Koffler had just given me. He did, his voice trembling. I brought the phone to my ear. Koffler had hung up.

  Elena held her head in both hands.

  I went into the kitchen and got a meat cleaver. Elena Castillo didn't move an inch as I sawed the plastic cuffs from the kid's wrists. It took more work than I expected, and after several minutes I felt like a cross between a psychopath and a jackass.

  I replaced the cut cuffs with my own grip and walked the kid to the front door. I kicked it open and shoved him through, the cleaver raised at my side in case he made any sudden moves.

  He turned, a stupid confidence returning to him now that he was an inch outside of the apartment. "I would have told them you tried to fuck me," he informed me.

  "You're going to be fucked for the rest of your life, Philip."

  I closed the door on him. I watched through the peephole as he flew down the front steps and out of the building.

&n
bsp; Chapter 11

  I took a seat across from Elena Castillo at the butcher-block table. She stared expressionlessly at the table as she pulled a pack of cigarettes from her jeans pocket and lit one. There was a small glass ashtray on the kitchen counter. I got it for her.

  "She said they had a fight," Elena said. "She said they had a fight the morning he went out.

  That's all."

  I had expected her to lace into me for letting the kid go, but it seemed as if the events Scott Koffler had spoken of had slugged the breath as well as the anger out of her. "You really gonna meet with that guy?"

  I needed to steer her back to safer ground if I was going to gain access to Melissa. "How long have you and Melissa been friends?"

  "Since high school," she said. "They called us the Stepford Bitches. It was me, Melissa, and this girl Caitlin. Caitlin went off to school in New York, and when she came back she wasn't Caitlin anymore. Missy moved down here to become a marine's wife and I went to Oxnard so I could find out what divorce is like before I hit forty."

  She didn't return my smile. "Melissa used to be my rock," she said. "My husband didn't even tell me he was leaving me. I came home one day and the apartment was totally empty.

  Afterwards I came down here. She was going to support me. Emotionally, I mean."

  "How long ago did you move down here?"

  "Two years," she said.

  "Was Corey McCormick still in their lives then?"

  She shook her head. "Missy mentioned him. She said he and Danny used to be friends, but then Corey came out of the closet and left the marines. Then she told me—"

  "He went to West Hollywood and died of AIDS," I finished for her.

  "Obviously, that didn't happen, right?" she asked. "That guy . . ."

  "His name is Scott Koffler."

  "He said Corey's missing."

  "He went missing the day after Danny came to West Hollywood."

  "You're trying to find him?" she asked. "Missy said you showed her his picture."

  "I'm trying to find out what he did before he left," I said, averting my eyes. "If that leads to him, then so be it."

  I got up from the table and asked her if she wanted anything to drink. She answered by staring at me. "Were you his boyfriend or something?"

  "Something. Yeah." I didn't know what else I could say to persuade her. "I need to talk her, Elena."

  "You need to, huh?"

  "I want to," I said.

  She rubbed at her eyelids with a thumb and forefinger. "Don't give me some bullshit about the truth setting you free," she said. "She knows the truth and she's not free. She's been in that bedroom ever since I brought her here. The only way the truth can set you free is if you give it to someone else and they do something with it. Something good."

  I heard the challenge. It took me several minutes to decide how I should rise to it. "The Marine Corps is conducting its own investigation into the crash, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Has Melissa given a statement yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "The Armed Services' policy on homosexuality makes gay service members susceptible to blackmail."

  "You think she should make this political? Danny killed four men. The other wives turned their backs on Melissa at the memorial service on Monday morning. You think she can change any of that by getting up there and saying that Danny was a—"

  I cut her off before the word fag could come out of her mouth. "She can't change any of it, Elena. She can only change what she says."

  Elena went to the living room window. The slanting sunlight turned the gauze curtains opaque and gave her copper-colored hair a bright halo. "She can also change her prescriptions every now and then, I guess," Elena said bitterly. When she turned to face me, I got the sense that she had settled an argument she was having with herself.

  "You have to ask her a question for me, too," she said. "You have to ask her why a perfectly healthy, beautiful twenty-seven-year-old would get her tubes tied."

  I waited outside the open door to Melissa's bedroom as Elena went inside. In the milky light, I saw cardboard boxes inside, stacked three high against one wall, their bottoms bulging.

  Obviously Melissa had no plans to return to the apartment she had shared with her husband. A Vornado fan stood at the foot of the bed, its dull rush accompanying the roar of the white noise machine on the nightstand.

  Melissa Brady slept flat on her back beneath a smooth sea of comforter. It was clear that she hadn't moved much during her slumber and didn't plan to start. From the nightstand drawer, Elena pulled out a plastic pill case, the kind with a slot for each day of the week. The slot for that day was almost empty. Elena pulled a red pill from the slot for the next day and the one after.

  Elena smoothed Melissa's hair from her forehead. The woman didn't stir. I felt like I was intruding upon a moment between lovers, so I withdrew to the living room. I heard whispers coming from the bedroom. Several minutes later, a shower started running.

  Corey had hired Scott Koffler himself. I tried to absorb this fact. Billy Hathill had not been the go-between, as I had suspected. I remembered Jimmy's assertion from the night before: If Corey had needed Billy Hatfill to carry out his revenge, that meant Billy had provided something essential to the plan.

  I heard shuffling behind me. Melissa Brady's damp hair hung flat and straight down the back of her head. She wore a baby-blue bathrobe and matching slippers. She reacted to the sight of me just as she had reacted to Corey's photograph that afternoon.

  She screwed her eyes shut and spun away from me. Elena blocked her path. When Elena gripped her right shoulder, Melissa batted her arm away with surprising force. "No!" Elena seized Melissa by both biceps and held her in place. The dam on her anger had burst and I could see it flooding her eyes, filling her throat. "This isn't working, okay?" Elena hissed to her. "It's just not working and I'm tired of it!"

  Melissa's entire body quivered. Sobs exploded out of her. Elena pulled the other woman's shaking body to her, but her own stance was rigid; all she was doing was holding Melissa in place.

  "Melissa?" I asked.

  Her sobs abated.

  "How long has it been since you've seen Corey McCormick?"

  Melissa muttered something I couldn't make out. "Four years," Elena said.

  "Do you know why he left the Marine Corps?"

  Melissa turned sharply to face me. Her robe fell open, revealing a pair of men's boxer shorts and a moth-eaten V-neck T-shirt underneath. Her eyes were wild—whatever pills Elena had given her were coursing through her system.

  "We were friends, all right?" she yelled at me, her voice thick. "The three of us. Me, Danny, and Corey!

  "We used to hang out together all the time. Danny and I were engaged. We used to joke that Corey was like our son, even though he was only two years younger. Still, it was like he was a kid sometimes. And Danny tried to help him out with stuff."

  "What kind of stuff?"

  "Corey ran away from home when he was sixteen. Danny was a foster kid, but he had managed to make a life for himself. A good one! He wanted to show Corey how to do it." Her face wrinkled and her sobs crumpled her mouth.

  I gave her a little time to catch her breath. "What happened?" I asked.

  "Danny was . . . acting weird, all right? I thought he was just nervous about getting married.

  But he was . . . disappearing."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He'd go off by himself and wouldn't come back for, like, a whole day" she said, her words coming out in a rush, without a breath in between. "Corey said it was drugs. Corey's mother, she was a meth addict or something. She went to prison. He said if it was drugs we had to do something. He said we had to save Danny."

  I flashed on the tableau of my bloodied drug dealer lying facedown on the floor of his apartment, saw Corey rifling through my bookshelves in the middle of the night as he searched for my stash.

  "I was scared," Melissa wailed. "I didn't know what to do." She manag
ed to still herself. "I asked Corey to follow him."

  "What happened?" I asked, working to keep my voice composed as well.

  I watched Melissa travel out of her body and out of the room. She lowered her head and gazed between the toes of her baby-blue slippers.

  "Corey followed him for two days," she said, suddenly sounding drowsy. "He said that Danny got a motel room in San Diego. He said Danny kept going to playgrounds."

  I saw where this headed. It was clear from the blank expression on her face that Elena Castillo did not.

  "He said that Danny would go in the bathrooms, like he was ... checking them out, you know?

  Then he'd go to another playground and do the same thing. Then he'd sit on a bench and watch the kids. He didn't do anything, but Corey said ..."

  Words failed her. Elena brought one hand to her chest as she leaned the back of her head against the wall, her face grim.

  "What, Melissa?" I finally asked. 'What did Corey say?"

  "He said it looked like Danny was planning something."

  I met Elena's eyes briefly. I wanted to tell Elena that Melissa had just told her why she had her tubes tied at the age of twenty-seven.

  "I thought he was lying," Melissa said in a tiny voice.

  "Corey?"

  She nodded. "I knew Corey wasn't interested in women—that was why he spent so much time with us. I never thought he was in love with Danny. Not until he started saying that shit. I thought Corey was trying to break us up. I didn't think it was true." Her now-wild eyes met mine.

  "I thought Corey was lying!"

  Elena flinched, and I had to work not to. The agony in Melissa's voice told me that she had since learned Corey had told her the truth.

  'What did you say to Corey?"

  Her eyes drifted shut, forcing tears down her flaming cheeks. "I told him he had to leave."

  Then her gaze grew suddenly fierce and defiant. "I told him that if he ever came back to Oceanside, I would file a report with his commanding officer. I told him he could either go AWOL or have the words discharged for homosexual acts stamped on every piece of paper that had his name on it for the rest of his life."

  She had channeled a four-year-old rage and filled the living room with it. She had no idea that for me, she had just damned herself, and for a brief instant I wanted to prove this fact to her by throwing her across the room. Then I realized that I was reacting as Corey must have: He had wanted to punish the woman standing in front of me as much as he had wanted to punish her husband. She was the one who had snatched away what was probably the only stable and meaningful life he'd ever known. "Did Corey love him, Melissa?" I asked.