His Name Is John

by Dorien Grey

  He gradually loosened his control on his thoughts, letting them wander around like sheep let out to pasture. Was there a connection between the two deaths? Or was John’s knowing Hill was dead just some sort of spiritual-plane thing Elliott could not comprehend? John had always said he didn’t know if he knew Hill or not. John had been killed on March 22. Cole had said he’d been out of town for a week and returned on March 23 to find Hill missing. So, if Cole had had anything to do with Hill’s death, it probably meant Hill was killed sometime around the sixteenth, before Cole left for what might have been an alibi-establishing trip. Kill Hill on the fifteenth, dispose of the body somewhere it was fairly certain not to be found—where or how Elliott had no idea.

  Of course, if Hill were dead, it wasn’t axiomatic that Cole had killed him. Cole, he speculated, had perhaps deliberately left the door open to the possibility that Hill might have met someone while he was away. All Elliott really knew about Cole was what he’d gathered from their brief phone conversations, and just because he didn’t particularly like the guy was no reason to make a quantum leap to his being a murderer.

  His mind kept churning out thoughts and possibilities, few of which had much basis in logic, and none of which he had any way of pursuing easily. It wasn’t until the ringing of the phone startled him out of his reverie that he realized his bagel was gone, and his coffee was cold. He hurriedly got up and went inside to answer the phone.

  “Elliott, hi. It’s Steve. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No, I’ve been up quite a while. We still on for this afternoon?”

  “That’s what I was calling to check on. We’re meeting at 1:30 at the Fullerton stop, right?”

  “Right. I’ll be on the first car, so if you’re there, watch for me. If you’re not, I’ll get off and wait.”

  “Good plan. I’m looking forward to it. And…” a shrill whistling interrupted his sentence. “Damn: the tea kettle’s boiling. I’d better go. Later.”

  “Later,” Elliott echoed, and they hung up.

  * * *

  Leaving his condo exactly at exactly ten minutes until one, Elliott walked up to the Thorndale el station. A train pulled up just as he reached the top of the stairs and he was able to hurry to the first car and step on without breaking stride.

  Not seeing Steve as the train pulled up at Fullerton, he got off to wait. As he waited, he allowed his fascination for trivia to take over his mind. As a Brown Line train pulled in, he idly reflected that there were twenty-eight stops on the Brown Line route, thirty-three stops on the Red Line. He hadn’t taken the Purple, Blue, Green, Pink and Orange Lines often enough to have made a stop count on them. That he considered himself a practical man yet was addicted to information that had little or no practical value didn’t detract from his taking pleasure in it.

  Seven trains later—one southbound and two northbound Brown Line, two northbound and two southbound Red Line—a southbound Brown Line pulled up to the platform and Steve got out, a large manila envelope in one hand.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”

  “Not at all,” Elliott said, as a southbound Red Line pulled up on the other side of the platform.

  * * *

  They got off at Chicago and walked the three blocks to the gallery. Classic renovated “Old Chicago” exterior, all chrome, glass, high ceilings and polished hardwood floors inside—it was exactly what Elliott had mentally pictured. Aside from a very stylishly dressed woman in a business suit and a couple he took, from the camera around the man’s neck, to be tourists, the place was empty. They walked in to a smile of recognition from the woman, directed at Steve. They went directly over to her, Steve extending his hand as they approached.

  “Miss Brown, it’s nice to see you.”

  “And you, Mr. Gutierrez,” she replied warmly, taking his hand.

  Steve turned to Elliott. “This is my friend, Elliott Smith.”

  They exchanged “Pleased to meet yous” and a handshake. Miss Brown’s gaze subtly moving back and forth between Steve and him, the eye movement accompanied by a small, knowing smile.

  Extending the envelope, Steve said, “I’ve brought these for Mr. Devereux. If he’d like to give me a call when he’s had a chance to look at them…”

  The tourist couple moved toward the door with a smile and a nod to Miss Brown, who returned them with a pleasant, “Thank you for coming by.” When the couple had left, she turned her attention back to Steve. “Thank you so much for bringing them by. Mr. Devereux is sorry he couldn’t set up a definite appointment to look at them with you, but his schedule this week is just so…full.”

  “I understand,” Steve said, giving her a dazzling smile. “I’ll look forward to hearing from him.”

  Glancing out the window, Elliott noticed a stretch limo pull up to the curb. The passenger’s side rear door opened and a woman resembling a young Katharine Hepburn, complete with slacks and a sweater tied casually across her shoulders, emerged. She turned briefly, bending to say something to the driver, then shut the door, and the limo moved off. As she approached the gallery door, Miss Brown, who apparently missed very little, laid her hand lightly on Steve’s arm.

  “Would you excuse me?”

  Steve gave her another smile and said, “Of course.”

  As she started for the door to greet the new arrival, she turned slightly to say, “Please do look around, if you have the time.” And then she walked quickly away, free hand extended to the new arrival.

  Steve gave Elliott a grin. “You want to take a minute to check out the place? They’ve got some really great things.”

  “Sure,” Elliott said, beginning to really pay attention to the room for the first time. At first glance it appeared to be just the one large room with only perhaps twenty paintings carefully placed on what he now recognized as cloth-covered walls. But he then saw that what appeared to be a large opening on the back wall actually led to a number of smaller, partitioned areas. Whoever had designed the lighting had, he decided, done a great job. Whereas the main room primarily relied on light from the huge front windows, the back areas were far more intimate, each picture individually and dramatically highlighted.

  They wandered around, first the large room, where Miss Brown and “Katharine Hepburn” were in deep conversation in front of a Georgia O’Keefestyle still life of a brilliant red anthurium in a translucent blue thin-necked vase, then moving to the back. None of the paintings bore any indication of their cost, but he could imagine. Steve was right, he thought—there were some truly beautiful works on display, and he was aware of Steve watching him as he looked at the various pieces. At one point, in one of the farthest partitioned areas, Steve stepped away from him long enough to look out into the main room, where the two women were still engrossed in their conversation. Then he came back to Elliott, took him by the shoulders, and kissed him, catching him totally off-guard, but hardly displeased.

  Finally, Steve broke the kiss and backed away, looking at Elliott with a grin into which Elliott read volumes.

  “Hey, what can I say?” Steve asked. “Art turns me on!”

  They left the gallery a few minutes later, after exchanging waves and smiles with Miss Brown who, with her prospective client, had moved on down the wall to a huge abstract that looked to Elliott like it had been done by a chimpanzee with a paint roller. He had a general rule when it came to art, which he did not relay to Steve—if he couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be, he wasn’t interested.

  “Impressive place,” he said as they left the gallery. “And if you can land a couple of buyers like the limo lady, you’ll have it made!”

  Steve grinned and shrugged. “Well, it isn’t quite that easy, I’m afraid. Though it sure would be nice if it was.”

  When they reached the corner of LaSalle and Superior, Elliott said, “You want to catch a bus, or shall we walk part of the way? It’s over a mile to the Pier, but we can catch the free trolley on Michigan Ave.”r />
  “Sure,” Steve said. “It’s a nice day, won’t hurt us to walk.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the ringing of Steve’s cell phone. Fishing it out of his pocket, he flipped open the lid, giving Elliot a quick, “Sorry.”

  Elliott noted with bemusement that he and Steve had identical phones. Though he tried not to listen, he gathered the call was from Steve’s brother, and from the conversational tone of Steve’s voice, he gathered it was nothing urgent. Steve cut the call as short as he could, and returned the phone to his pocket.

  “Sorry about that,” he repeated. “Manny and I try to talk a couple of times a week.”

  “How’s he doing?” Elliott asked.

  “Great. He just got back from the gym.”

  Elliott wondered again what it must be like to have a brother…and especially one who was HIV positive.

  They continued their zig-zag route from Superior and Wells to Michigan and Ohio, where they caught the free trolley to Navy Pier.

  “So this is your first time to Navy Pier?” Elliott asked as the bus made its way along Michigan Avenue.

  Steve nodded. “Yeah. I’m eager to see it. I’ve heard a lot about it.”

  “Biggest single tourist attraction in Chicago,” Elliott said.

  Steve raised an eyebrow. “Really? No Navy there, though, I gather?”

  “Not since 1947,” he replied, unable to resist dipping into his trivia file. “Now the only sailors you’ll see are from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in North Chicago, and lots of commercial tour boats.”

  They got off the bus at the main entrance and started walking along the more than half mile of shops, restaurants, concession stands and various other enterprises designed to part the tourist from his or her money. Elliott made sure they stopped at the large stained-glass window exhibit, though, and Steve, as an artist, was duly impressed.

  By the time they’d walked the length of the pier and back again, stopping for some overpriced coffee, which they drank at their leisure at tables along the edge of the dock, it was nearly five o’clock. All in all, a great afternoon, he thought. Steve was funny, and sharp, and obviously had more than a passing interest in Elliott. And though he knew John wasn’t far away, he was spared any overt reminders of G.J. Hill, Rob Cole and his search for John’s true identity.

  “So where to now?” Steve asked as they left Navy Pier’s main entrance.

  “Well, it’s a little early for dinner, but by the time we get there and have a drink, it might be time…if you don’t mind eating early.”

  Steve shook his head. “Hey, I can eat any time. How far away is the place we’re going?”

  “Pizzaria Uno. It’s on East Ohio—not all that far, but we’ve already done our share of walking for the day.” He glanced up at the sky and the increasing number of grey-bottomed clouds moving in from the west. “Besides, it looks like it might decide to rain.”

  Steve shrugged. “I don’t mind a little rain, but I’m a pretty good cloud-reader, and I can almost guarantee you we don’t have to worry about it.”

  Elliott gave him a skeptical look, then said, “If you say so. How about we compromise, take the shuttle back up to Michigan, then walk the rest of the way? It’s only about three blocks from there.”

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  Even at 5:45, the restaurant was nearly full. He led Steve to the menu posted by the door, then gave his name and their order to the girl in charge of the seating. Informed there’d be at least a half hour wait, they moved into the relatively small dining area and found two seats at the far end of the bar

  “What’ll you have?” he asked Steve, who furrowed his brows as if in deep thought.

  “Hmm. I’m not sure. Something pink and frothy with a slice of pineapple and an umbrella in it, I think.”

  “Great idea!” Elliott replied. “I’ll just sit over there until you’re finished.”

  “Ah, the body and the mind of a truck driver.”

  Elliott punched him lightly on the arm as the bartender came over to them.

  “Bloody Mary,” Steve said.

  “Make it two,” Elliott echoed.

  “So did you ever find out anything more about that guy in the photo?” Steve asked as they waited.

  Well, Elliott thought, so much for not thinking of Hill today.

  “Sort of,” he said. He wasn’t sure just how much he should or could tell Steve without risking painting himself into a corner.

  Steve looked at him quizzically. “Well, that was cryptic,” he said. “I withdraw the question.”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Elliott said. “It’s just that things are getting pretty complicated. I don’t want to bore you with a long story.”

  The bartender bought their drinks and they went through the ritual reaching-for-the-wallet routine, which Steve won. Handing the bartender a bill, Steve turned back to Elliott.

  “I don’t mind being bored every now and then,” he said with a grin. “But I don’t want to pry into your affairs.”

  Returning the grin and picking up his drink, Elliot said, “That’s a big part of it. It’s not my affair, really, I just sort of stumbled into it through the side door.” He took a long drink from his Bloody Mary, immediately noticing the bartender had been a bit too generous with the tabasco.

  They were both quiet a moment until Steve said, “Okay, you’ve got me. Is there more?”

  Flagging down the bartender for a glass of water and waiting until he’d put out the fire in his mouth, he nodded.

  “I wrote to G.J. Hill to see if he might know the guy. It seems Hill himself is missing.”

  Steve edged closer. “Aha! Interesting! How did you find that out? And do you think your John Doe might be G.J. Hill?”

  “I emailed Hill on a whim, saying that there was a John Doe here in Chicago he might possibly know. I got a reply from his lover, who struck me as being someone I don’t think I’d care to get to know much better, asking for more details. It turns out that they live in a motor home that’s in San Luis Obispo at the moment. The guy told me he’d gotten back from a trip on the twenty-third of March and Hill was gone. He hasn’t been heard of since. John Doe was murdered on the twenty-second. I sent him a copy of Doe’s picture and…he says it’s Hill. I don’t believe him.”

  Steve’s face reflected his puzzlement. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you believe him? The guy sure as hell should be able to recognize his own lover. From what I remember of the photo, the guy was pretty banged up, but hardly unidentifiable.”

  “I know,” Elliott said, “but…” And he proceeded to lay out the same scenario he’d presented to Brad.

  “Wow!” Steve said when he had finished.

  They were on their second round of drinks—Elliott had switched to a gin and tonic—when a waiter came up to them. “Your table’s ready,” he said with a smile.

  They followed him then sat in relative silence, enjoying their drinks, until Elliott looked up to see Steve watching him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I was just thinking of something,” Steve said. “You said Hill lived in a motor home?”

  Elliott nodded. “That’s what Cole said.”

  Steve continued to stare at him, lips pursed, brows again furrowed. After a moment he said, “Well, this may sound odd, and I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with Hill’s disappearance but… I was just thinking of the time in Big Bear I got picked up by a guy in a motor home.”

  Elliott was immediately curious. “Ah?” he said. “Tell all!”

  Steve gave him a small smile, and Elliott, who had been surprised by a small flash of totally uncharacteristic jealousy when Steve mentioned another guy, hoped he was not reading his mind.

  “Well, I was in a grocery store in Big Bear about a year ago, and this guy kept cruising me—not subtly, either.” His smile broadened into a grin. “Hey, I’m only human! So, he goes through the checkout line and leaves while I’m still shopping,
and when I leave the store I see this huge motor home with California plates sitting in the lot, and this guy’s standing in front of the open door. When he sees me come out, he gives me a heads-up ‘come hither’ nod, so…” He shrugged. “I’d never done it in a motor home before. Kind of exciting, even if the guy was a kook. Anyway, the reason I brought it up is that I remember noticing there was a glass-fronted cabinet on one wall, with a lot of camera equipment in it. While we were getting dressed afterwards, I asked him if he was a photographer, and he said no, but the guy he was traveling with was…he said he’d left him out in the woods while he came into town to pick up supplies. Do you suppose there might be any chance…?”

  “Good question,” Elliott responded. “You said the guy was a kook. How so, if I’m not prying into your bedroom secrets?”

  Steve chuckled. “No, not a kook that way. More subtle. He asked me to take my shoes off as soon as I got in the door, for one thing, and when I did, he lined both our pairs up just so. There wasn’t a gnat’s eyebrow out of place that I could see. When we got undressed, he folded his pants carefully over a chair and smoothed out the wrinkles, then did the same with his shirt. It was a tee shirt, fer chrissakes! Then when we got out of bed he spent five minutes remaking it. I realized then that he was probably doing more than ‘traveling with’ the guy he’d left in the woods and didn’t want him to know he was out trolling for tricks the minute the guy’s back was turned. But still, given everything else…”

  “He sounds like a real winner,” Elliott said, but feeling his adrenaline level building. “Did you get the guy’s name?”

  Steve shook his head. “It wasn’t exactly a name-exchange situation,” he said. “But when you said Hill had a motor home—the guy said it was his own, by the way—it just all sort of fell into place, and a motor home might explain how Hill could spend so much time in the area without living there. And if the guy was Hill’s lover, he’s not only a neat freak, he’s also a real prick. I don’t like guys who lie, and guys who cheat on their lovers piss me off.”