“Do I mind?” Ignoring my utilitarian Bic, he drew a gold Mont Blanc pen from his pocket and scribbled something on the back of a business card. I swallowed my annoyance and tucked my disposable pen back into my jacket, letting the lapel fall back slowly enough to give him a glimpse of the shoulder rig. His eyes flicked to the gun, then back to my face. “Somehow,” he said, “I don’t think that’s really much of a consideration. Whether or not I mind.”
“I’ll find out what I want to know,” I said. “One way or the other.”
“I’m sure you will. But by all means, give me a call.” He held out the card between two fingers. “Byron, of course, will have to decide for himself.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Byron and Keating pulled away in Keating’s Buick Skylark, Josh turned to me and asked, “What was that? Some kind of pissing contest?”
“Something like that. How’d you get here, anyway?”
“Hitched. Don’t say it, I know it was stupid.”
It was. I opened my mouth to deliver a lecture. Closed it again. What could I say that he didn’t already know? “Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Could we just drive around for awhile?”
“Roads are getting pretty bad.”
“Just for a little while.”
We drove past a mall that had been dying since the seventies, cruised through the parking lot of a movie theater shaped like a jukebox, and crossed onto Bransford past a row of specialty shops draped in Christmas lights. While I drove, Josh closed his eyes and leaned his temple against the passenger-side window. I wondered what I should say, or if I should say anything at all.
We passed the darkened fairgrounds and came back out onto I-65 on the south side of town. The city came into view, the double antennae of the AT&T Batman building stretching up past the L&C tower and the rotating restaurant at the top of the old Hyatt Regency hotel. With the ice glistening in the lights, it may have been the most beautiful skyline in the world.
I glanced over at Josh and said, “Why’d you do it?”
He lifted his head. “I wanted to see the funeral.”
“No.” I nodded toward his wrists. “Why’d you do that?”
“You know you’re the first person who’s asked me that? I mean, besides my therapist. Everyone’s so freaked thinking if they ask, I’ll do it again. Like I’ll go right over the edge or something.”
“You came pretty close to it already.”
“I know. It’s complicated. Like . . .” He pressed his head hard against the window. “I can’t explain it.”
“Can’t?”
He shrugged. I wanted to ask why he hadn’t told me he was with Absinthe an hour before Razor’s murder, but something in his face told me this wasn’t the right time. Instead, I swung onto the 440 bypass loop, then onto the West End ramp. Past Centennial Park, where the full-sized replica of the Parthenon glowed in the mist, pale pillars lit with green and red. Not for nothing is Nashville called the Athens of the South. We drove to Music Row, circled the classical nude bronze Musica statue and headed back toward the Interstate. Passed a six-foot fiberglass catfish in a cowboy hat, and a few yards away, a man playing a guitar on the sidewalk. A Weimaraner dressed in an army uniform shivered at his feet.
Josh leaned over me for a better look. “Can we give them something, Uncle Jared? It’s freezing out there.”
I glanced into the rearview mirror, saw there was no one behind me, and slid to a stop. Rolled down my window and waved the musician over to the truck. He slung the guitar strap over his shoulder and picked his way across the slick street. He was about sixty, stiff with arthritis, or maybe just half frozen. The dog padded behind him, tail wagging. I stepped out of the truck, motioned Josh to stay inside, and shut the door behind me. Just in case.
I handed the musician a twenty, and he pocketed it with a grateful smile.
“Bless you, sir. God bless you.”
I said, “You know Kaizen? Shelter over near the bus station?”
“I heard of it. Why?”
“Guy who runs it is a friend of mine.”
He nodded toward the dog. “Can’t keep Charley in no shelter.”
“Ask for Billy Mean,” I said. “Tell him Jared sent you. He’ll let you keep your dog.”
“Billy Mean,” he said. “I heard of him. Some kind of badass in Vietnam.”
“Long time ago,” I said.
“Not to me.”
It was a long walk, so I loaded them into the back of the truck, drove to Billy’s, and dropped them off. Randall would kill me if he knew I was picking up strangers with Josh in the truck, but I was pretty sure Josh wouldn’t tell him.
The musician turned back at the door. “Bless you, sir,” he said again. “Bless you both.”
From the passenger seat, Josh waved goodbye, looking happier than he had in months. It had probably been awhile since he’d felt like he’d done something good, or at least caused something good to happen. He needed more of that. As we pulled away, I looked at him and said, “Can you get me into one of those vampire games? The kind Razor and his buddies played?”
“Razor didn’t play. Razor just was.”
“All right. Whatever. But the others. They told the police they were playing the day—” I stopped.
“The day Razor died. I know. But Mom and Dad don’t let me play anymore. Maybe if you told them I was helping you out with an investigation—”
“Never mind. It was a bad idea.”
“But if you saw what it was really like. I mean, if you told them it was no big deal—”
“Josh . . .”
He gave me a big-eyed, pleading look. When he was five, I’d bought him a big-kid bike because of it. “Please?” he said. “If you’d just check it out, I know you’d see it isn’t like you think it is. It’s not all weird and gruesome.”
“You guys drink blood. How much more weird and gruesome could you be?”
His fist clenched against the side of his thigh. “That’s not part of the game. Most of the people who play don’t even do that. Razor was just a little . . .” He stopped.
“Extreme? Perverse? Sociopathic?”
“Eccentric.”
I snorted, and he turned his face away, back toward the window.
“Anyway,” he said, “why are you doing this if you hated him so much? Whoever killed him did the world a favor, right?”
“I’m doing this because you asked me to.”
“But you think he deserved it?”
“That’s not for me to say.”
In the long, uncomfortable silence that followed, we swung onto Briley Parkway and cruised past the gold glass International Plaza building. It glistened like a Christmas ornament in the icy mist. Then Josh said, “Please, Uncle Jared? I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to. Ever since you brought me home last summer. I make curfew every night. I’m seeing a counselor. She’s lame, and she doesn’t understand about the game, but even she says Mom and Dad should check it out. They won’t, I know that. But they’d believe you if you told them it was okay.”
“And if I don’t think it’s okay?”
“You will. But I wouldn’t ask you to lie. I know you wouldn’t, anyway.”
I thought about it. What could it hurt? Josh could be my passport to the vampire culture, and if there seemed to be anything harmful about it, I could make sure he never went back.
Never being a relative term. Once he turned eighteen, all bets were off, all influence null and void.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
He turned back toward the window, but not in time to hide his smile.
I hadn’t even stopped the truck before Randall opened his front door and stepped out onto the porch. He watched us through squinted eyes, pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket, and tapped one out into his palm. I hated that he was smoking again, but ragging him about it would only make him defensive.
“Shit,” muttered Josh, then cut his gaze toward me. “
Sorry.”
“I’ve heard the word before.”
“He’s gonna kill me.” He slid out of the passenger seat and slunk toward the house, head low. I turned off the ignition and followed.
When we were almost to the porch, Randall jerked his head toward the house. “Your mom was worried,” he said to Josh.
Josh bobbed his head even lower. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell it to your mother.”
As Josh ducked around his father and into the house, Randall turned to me and said, “You took him to the funeral.”
“No. I brought him back from it.”
“I didn’t want him to go.”
“I know.”
He looked off into the distance, hunched a shoulder. “It’s good you were there, I guess. He’d rather have you there than me, anyway.”
“It’s not about that.”
“Right.”
“If I was his dad, he’d be coming to you.” I wasn’t sure this was true. I thought I was a pretty cool dad. Way cooler than Randall, but it didn’t seem like a good time to say so.
“Hell.” He rolled the cigarette between his fingers, stuck it between his lips, took it out again and pointed it at me. “This isn’t coming out right.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
He barked a short, embarrassed laugh and I laughed with him, glad of the moment. We hadn’t laughed at all since I’d found Josh fading out of consciousness in that tub of bloody water. It was about time.
“You want to come in for a beer?” he asked.
“Next time.”
He took a long drag from his cigarette. Then he said, “I hope you spit on the son of a bitch for me.”
“Where he is, he’d probably appreciate it.”
I watched him in the rearview mirror as I pulled away. He was a big man, but he looked small standing there, smoke curling from his cigarette and up into the mottled winter sky. I considered turning the truck around, taking him up on that beer.
But it was getting late, and the icy mix was still coming down, and I wanted to get home before the roads got any more treacherous. There were a thousand good reasons not to go inside and have a drink with my brother.
None of them should have been good enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The house I lived in, a two-story Victorian-style farmhouse with a wraparound porch, was a fifteen-minute drive from my brother’s. The rutted gravel driveway wound for almost a quarter mile through a corridor of trees—white oak, red cedar, slippery elm,Virginia pine. From spring to fall, the house was invisible from the road, but now, with the hardwoods barren and only the evergreens in full foliage, you could catch glimpses of the house and barn through the tangle of branches.
I rounded the last curve, and the corridor opened on either side. The barn and pasture flashed by on my right. The horses looked up as I passed, then resumed munching on a round bale in the middle of the pasture.
Just ahead, my housemate, Jay Renfield, stood at the bottom of an extension ladder propped against the porch roof. Bundled up in a multicolored parka like some kind of pop art Eskimo, he was playing out a string of Christmas lights like a fishing line, while his lover, Eric the Viking, perched at the top of the ladder, hanging the other end of the lights along the eaves.
Jay and I had met in kindergarten, but lost touch after high school. He ran off with a bleached blond biker boy with a Marilyn Monroe tattoo, was disowned by his family, and went on to become a computer programmer, making a small but comfortable fortune designing games and graphics. I joined the force, got married, had a son. Our paths didn’t cross. Part of it was that we moved in different circles, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that part of it was a certain amount of discomfort with his homosexuality. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true.
Years later, he called me up out of the blue and told me that the biker boy had left him with a broken heart, a dozen maxed-out credit cards, and a virus that would destroy his immune system.
Son of a bitch.
When I found myself divorced, unemployed, and rudderless, he offered me a place to stay. Cheap rent, swimming pool, and a place to board my horses. In return, I played chauffeur when he was too sick to drive, nursed him through night sweats and night terrors, and did odd jobs around the place. It was hard to tell which of us was getting the better end of the deal, so we just called it even.
Eric the Viking waved with his free hand as I approached the house. “Hey, Cowboy. Deck the halls and all that jazz.”
“We’ll be done here in a minute.” Jay’s breath coalesced in front of him like a disembodied spirit. “There’s hot chocolate in the kitchen.”
I gave him a two-fingered salute and went inside to pour myself a steaming cup of cocoa.
The kitchen smelled of sugar and warm milk. A pot of hot chocolate simmered on the stove. Draped across the back of my chair was my father’s leather bomber jacket, the one I’d been wearing when I found Josh. Unwilling to part with it, I’d stuffed it into the back of the closet when soaking and scrubbing failed to remove the stains.
I checked the cuffs for blood. They were clean.
I put it on and stepped back out onto the porch.
“Hey,” I said.
Jay looked up. Smiled. “You found it.”
“How’d you get rid of the blood?”
“Enzymes.”
I laid my hand over my heart and bowed my head in his direction. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me more than one,” he said, grinning. “But anyway, you’re welcome.”
Upstairs, I lay on my bed and studied the Parker file. Started with the police report and worked through it page by page and photo by photo. I didn’t take notes. Not yet. Later, I’d attack the file with colored pens and highlighters, but for now, I just wanted to get a feel for the case.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered the phone ringing, a gust of cold air, the front door smacking shut, footsteps, Jay’s voice. Casual, then concerned. It was the change in his tone that caught my attention. He sounded like he’d just been invited to his own execution.
I pushed aside the file I was reading and went to lean in the doorway of the kitchen, where he was setting the receiver back in its cradle.
“Trouble?” I asked.
He tucked one hand under the other armpit and stared at the wall in front of him. His face was still red with cold and his hair was rumpled. The knit cap he’d been wearing lay on the counter beside the phone, like a deflated caterpillar.
“That was Greg.” His voice sounded strained. “I don’t think you’ve ever met him. Dylan got him in the settlement.”
I nodded. There’s always a settlement. After every breakup, mutual friends choose one member of a couple over the other. It happened when Maria and I divorced, and it’s just as true of gay couples as it is of straight ones.
“What did he want?” I said.
He squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a small shake. Then, “Dylan’s dying,” he said.
Dylan. The biker boy with the bleached blond hair. The fucking bastard who’d given Jay AIDS.
“Good,” I said.
He looked at me sharply. “He’s got no place to go.”
“What about Greg?”
Jay picked up the caterpillar cap and twisted it in his hands. “Greg’s a fabulous person, but he doesn’t deal well with suffering.”
“And the punk he left you for?”
“Bailed when Dylan started to show symptoms. Poor Dyl. I don’t think anyone ever left him before in his life.”
“Poor baby.”
“You think I’m a sap.”
“He gave you AIDS.”
“He didn’t mean to.” He turned the cap inside out, rubbed the ribbing between his fingers. “I need to do this, Jared.”
“Do what?” I asked. Jay looked at me, and it suddenly came clear. “You mean, bring him here?”
“He’s all alone. There’s nobody to take care of him. Can you imagine
what that must be like?”
“Let his family deal with him.”
“His parents are dead. Car wreck. They hadn’t spoken to him since he came out.” He looked away, but not before I saw the muscles in his jaw twitch. Jay’s parents had washed their hands of him when he’d told them he was gay. “He doesn’t have anybody else,” he said again.
I ran my tongue between my teeth and upper lip and tried to think of something clever to say. Instead, “It’s your house,” I said. “You can bring anybody into it you want.”
He said, “You’ll love him, you know. You think you’ll hate him. You’ll want to hate him. But you won’t.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
“It’s not all altruism.” He traced an invisible circle on the blue mosaic counter with his finger. “Maybe I’m just gratified that I’m the one he has to come back to.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince,” I said. “Don’t you think Eric might have a little problem with this?”
“I love Eric. He knows that. He’ll understand.”
I gave Jay’s shoulder a quick pat and sauntered upstairs, leaving him to break the news to his current lover that his former lover was coming home to die.
I wasn’t sure if I was being a coward or just minding my own business.
I found a pen in the drawer of my bedside table and flopped down on the bed with my copy of the Parker file. I went through it again, occasionally scrawling a note in a margin. People to interview, questions to ask.
Downstairs, voices rose and fell in tones of anger and betrayal. When the door slammed shortly after midnight and the house fell into an empty silence, I knew Jay had been wrong. Eric had not understood.
CHAPTER NINE
When Maria and I divorced, I took the horses on twenty-mile trail rides, baled hay until my shoulders ached and sweat glued my shirt to my back, sparred at the dojang until my lungs burned. Jay had a different way of coping, and I awoke to the mingled scents of dark roast coffee and blueberry muffins. If he and Eric didn’t patch things up, we’d be eating cookies and cobbler until New Year’s.
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