Snowball in Hell

by Josh Lanyon

  After breakfast they went for a walk in the woods, not touching beyond the occasional brush of arms or shoulders, but together nonetheless.

  “Why do you suppose the kidnappers scheduled things the way they did?” Nathan asked when they stopped to rest on a fallen log. A meadow lark sang in the chilly sunshine. A lone bee zipped past Matt’s ear like a miniature Jap Zero.

  “They had to wait until the banks were open on Monday.”

  “But why was there such a long delay before contacting the Arlens? And then why was there such a long delay between when the ransom was paid and Phil was supposed to be released?”

  “Well, that last might have been because they wanted to make sure the police hadn’t been notified—assuming the intention from the start wasn’t to murder young Arlen.”

  Nathan shook his head. “It still doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like…they needed time.”

  “Well, they would, wouldn’t they? What’s unusual about that?”

  “Why’d they wait so long to let the family know he’d been kidnapped?”

  Matt knew the answer to that one. “So they’d have no doubt that he really was missing. Apparently Arlen spent more than an occasional night away from home.”

  Nathan looked unconvinced. “It seems to me that each stage of the kidnapping was spaced so that there was plenty of time in between for the kidnappers to work on some plan they had.”

  Matt examined Nathan’s serious face. He enjoyed watching him, and he enjoyed listening to him. Liked the way his brain worked, liked the easy back and forth between them, liked him. Liked him a lot. Maybe too much. Maybe. But he’d never had this before, this effortless give-and-take of equals, not having to guard what he said, not having to sweeten it or soften it because Nathan wasn’t someone frightened by the truth—any truth. He said, “Okay, if he wasn’t kidnapped, what happened to him? The coroner says he wasn’t killed until Monday night. So the kidnapping wasn’t faked to cover a murder.”

  “Maybe not to cover a murder,” Nathan agreed. “But it could have been faked.”

  Mathew stared. “You think Arlen faked his own kidnapping?”

  Nathan continued to gaze out over the meadow. His cheek creased in a faint smile. “It’d be nice to talk to Pearl Jarvis, wouldn’t it?”

  They were following a trail up one of the hillsides when Matt noticed Nathan had gotten very quiet. He looked over at him, and he was pale, his jaw very tight. One arm was unobtrusively clamped against his side. Matt put his hand on his arm. “Let’s stop a minute.”

  Nathan slid out from under his touch, and Matt said, “There’s no one around. Relax.”

  He was surprised when Nathan bit out, “You seem to be taking this very much in stride.” He eased himself down on a flat-topped rock, breathing heavily.

  Matt dropped down beside him. “Would you be happier if I wasn’t?”

  “I’d feel like—hell. Skip it.”

  “What?”

  Nathan didn’t reply, leaning forward, resting his forehead in his hands, breathing fast and shallowly.

  “Okay?”

  Nathan ignored him.

  It was hard not to put his arm around those thin shoulders. “Look,” he said. “This is new to me. I guess I have a lot to learn, but one thing I have learned is…it’s not what I expected. What I was afraid of. You’re not—you’re what I used to hope—” It was too difficult to put into words. Too embarrassing. He cut that off. “I wasn’t raised by Jesuits or anything, but I don’t think God makes mistakes.”

  “No?” From behind his hands, Nathan’s voice was bitter. “What about two-headed calves? What about Siamese twins? You think homosexuality is some kind of deliberate flaw in the design?”

  “What?”

  “Skip it.”

  Neither of them spoke for a time. A hawk sailed through the blue silence and vanished—along with the lark song. The wind whispered through the pines around them.

  At last Nathan said, “I went to a doctor—in London. I wanted help. Wanted to stop feeling like this. Wanted to be normal.” He raised his head and his eyes met Matt’s. “I thought I wanted it more than anything.”

  “What happened?”

  Nathan’s smile was wry. “He said he could help me. I would have to go into a hospital—be committed, actually. They would give me electroshocks and cold baths and eventually I’d get better. But it would probably take years.”

  Matt could feel the hair on the top of his head prickling. “What—did you agree?”

  “I did. But then I chickened out.” Nathan’s grin was sheepish. “I’d used a false name, but I was terrified he’d find me and lock me up. Luckily we were mobilized a couple of weeks later. I wasn’t nearly as frightened of Jerry as I was of the witch doctor.”

  “An asylum would be about right,” Matt said. “Christ, you need a keeper, Doyle.”

  “It’d be nice.” Nathan looked away, but there was something in his funny, almost wistful smile that caught at Mathew’s heart.

  When they got back to the lodge, they had a drink in the hotel bar with the other guests—there were only a handful, and most of them had been coming to the lodge to celebrate Christmas for years. They were a pleasant enough bunch.

  Matt excused himself after a while and commandeered Mrs. Hubbard’s office to make a few phone calls.

  Nathan finished his drink, made small talk with some of the other guests, and then they all went to eat Christmas dinner served in the dining room. Several tables had been pushed together and covered with red tablecloths. There were candles in polished brass holders and a basket of holly with bright red berries for a centerpiece.

  Matt joined them about the time they were all finishing up their soup. He sat across from Nathan in the wide square of tables. Nathan tried hard not to watch Matt too much, but when he wasn’t watching Matt he could feel Matt looking at him.

  The food was as good as anything before the war—real turkey, stuffing with chestnuts, mashed potatoes and gravy. The yams, corn, green beans and pumpkin for the pie probably came from the hotel victory garden, but Nathan couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to come up with the rest of the feast. Hoarded ration books? Black market? He ate more in one go than he could remember consuming in years.

  Listening to the others talking about the war, for the first time he was aware of being grateful that he was home and safe—that Matt had made it home safely. And the next time he looked across the linen and candles and met Matt’s eyes, he didn’t look away, he smiled—and Matt smiled back.

  After Christmas dinner they managed to avoid being press-ganged into playing cards, and went upstairs where Matt gave him the bad news that there was still no sign of Pearl. “There’s been one development though.”

  Nathan was resting on the bed. He felt ready to explode from eating too much, but he raised an inquiring head.

  “We searched Phil Arlen’s apartment and found a wad of five-hundred dollar bills in Claire Arlen’s purse.”

  Nathan dropped his head back on the pillow. He didn’t say what he was thinking—that he thought it was a hell of thing the cops were searching women’s purses, that none of them had a right to privacy these days.

  “She says she doesn’t know how the money got there,” Matt added.

  “Does the money match the ransom money serial numbers?”

  “They’re checking on that now.” And then Matt strolled over to the bed, sat down and stretched out beside Nathan. He yawned widely. “Since we’re stuck…”

  Nathan shook his head, rose and went to prop a chair beneath the room door.

  Matt was already sleeping by the time he got back to the bed.

  They napped for a couple of long, peaceful hours, and when they woke they had turkey sandwiches and drinks in the bar with the other guests. They made small talk, sang a few carols when everyone had finally had enough to drink, and then at last it was late enough to retire upstairs, lock the door and turn down the lights. They crawled in between the sheets as
though they had been cuddling up together every night for years. For a time they just lay there, breathing quietly, acquainting themselves.

  Matt’s fingertips brushed the scars on Nathan’s side where the bullets had hit him, and Nathan’s skin twitched a little. It was Matt’s gentleness that he felt in his nerves and bones and blood, although it was nice to be touched, caressed.

  “How the hell did you survive this?”

  “Just unlucky, I guess.”

  He was kidding—he thought he was—but Matt raised his head. Nathan couldn’t read his expression in the darkness, but he heard his tone. “There are about a hundred thousand guys who’d have given anything to trade places with you.”

  Nathan grimaced. “I know.”

  But Matt couldn’t let it go. “You know how rare it is to survive getting hit by machine-gun fire?”

  “I know.”

  “Seems to me like that kind of—”

  “I know,” Nathan said again, and this time he couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

  When, at last, they began to fuck it was very good and Nathan bit back his desire to ask for more—this was all new for Matt and Nathan didn’t want to shock him or scare him off. It would be easy to do. It was clear to him that Matt had more enthusiasm than experience. It didn’t matter. He was willing to trade a lot for the pleasure of sleeping in Matt’s arms again, and when they had finished, pleasure echoing through him like the last vibrating note of a choir of angels, he turned to Matt and folded close.

  Matt’s lips pressed against his forehead. Nathan could feel he was smiling.

  He’d never slept as well as he had in the past two nights.

  On Sunday morning they were driven down to Indian Falls in the hotel station wagon, and they caught the first available train back to Los Angeles. There was no chance for further intimate discussion, so they talked trivialities, and somehow those seemed newly significant.

  As the mountains flattened out, and the pine trees gave way to cactus and desert and then houses and gardens, Nathan began to dread the swift approach of Los Angeles.

  He could feel Mathew’s withdrawal, although each time their eyes met, Mathew smiled fleetingly, and the knowledge of what they had shared was in his eyes.

  In Union Station, things happened very quickly, and they were out front on the pavement while the never-ending flood of passengers and friends and family parted around them.

  Nathan said, “Can I drop you somewhere?”

  “There’s a car coming for me,” Matt said.

  Nathan nodded. He knew he shouldn’t ask, already knew what the answer had to be, but he asked anyway. “Will I see you again?”

  Matt said brusquely, “I’m not leaving town.”

  And that pretty much answered Nathan’s question. He nodded, turning away, and Matt caught his arm. He immediately let him go, and said quietly, painfully, “It’s not that I don’t—I’m a cop, Nathan. It’s…too dangerous.”

  Nathan nodded. Smiled suddenly. “I know. Nice to have had a taste of…what it could be like. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have.”

  Matt’s face twisted as though Nathan had said something terrible, and Nathan wanted to reach out and reassure him that he meant it, meant every word. That he was truly grateful for these few hours, that it was the best Christmas ever. He had no regrets at all, despite the fact that he wished he hadn’t woken up this morning, that perfect happiness would have been to have gone to sleep in Matt’s arms and never opened his eyes again.

  But of course he couldn’t say that, and he couldn’t reach out. He could never touch Matt again.

  Instead he said softly, “Take care of yourself, Mathew.”

  Chapter Eight

  “How’d you make out?” Jonesy asked, as Matt climbed into the car.

  Matt grunted. In his mind’s eye he was watching Nathan’s long-legged stride across the Union Station parking lot, hat dipped at a rakish angle, apparently not a care in the world. Nathan was fine—so why was Matt’s gut knotting in anxiety?

  “How’s Mr. Doyle?”

  “Good as new,” Matt replied. “He just needed a couple hours’ sleep.”

  “Didn’t do you any harm either,” Jonesy said.

  “Who are you, my mother?” But Matt grinned. Jonesy had known him since he was in short pants. Then the flicker of curiosity in the older man’s eyes caught his attention. “What?”

  Jonesy shook his head. “Were you able to get anything out of him?”

  “He’s not our man.”

  “No? He’s sure as hell hiding something.”

  “Everybody’s hiding something, Jonesy. Even you, I guess.”

  Jonesy chuckled. “Mebbe so, mebbe so.”

  “Still no sign of the Jarvis woman?”

  “Near as anyone can tell, she stepped onto that train and vanished into thin air.”

  “Swell,” Matt said gloomily. “You’re watching her place and the Las Palmas Club?”

  “Yep, and we’re watching Sid Szabo’s apartment, but I don’t think she’d be dumb enough to go back there.” Jonesy turned south on Alameda, pausing for two jaywalking ladies laden with Christmas parcels. He gave a low whistle, and Matt shook off his preoccupation long enough to notice the women.

  Nice-looking women. He realized with something like shock that he was missing Nathan—it was like a pain you couldn’t quite put a name to. Maybe it wasn’t so strange after spending almost forty-eight hours in each other’s company, but he missed the sound of Nathan’s voice, and his quiet laugh. He even missed the smell of him.

  He shook off the feeling, and said crisply, “Tell me about the dough you found at Claire Arlen’s.”

  Jonesy put the car in motion. “The five hundred dollars she claims she didn’t know anything about?” He smiled. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, Loot, but that money didn’t match up with the serial numbers on the ransom money.”

  “So where’d the money come from? Old man Arlen cut the kid off, and I didn’t get the feeling Arlen’s wife was the thrifty kind.”

  “She stuck to her story. Said she didn’t know anything about the money. Had no idea how it got in her handbag.”

  Matt’s eyes rested on the Christmas garland stretched across the street. Funny how bedraggled Christmas decorations looked the day after Christmas. “Let’s bring Carl Winters in again,” he said. “In fact, bring Claire in too. Let’s have a brother and sister act.”

  Nathan went home to his apartment, collected the gift he’d bought weeks ago for his mother, and headed over to Glendale and the house he’d grown up in.

  His mother must have had a lonely Christmas on her own, although he didn’t see how that would be possible what with her church dinners and all her church friends and her church activities, but she hugged him as though she’d never expected to see him again, and there were tears in her eyes when she finally let him go.

  There were more tears when she opened his gift, a fuzzy pink cardigan. He felt foolish at the impulse that had prompted him to buy it. She didn’t wear fuzzy things or even pink.

  “Oh, Ma,” he said. She was not an emotional woman, and this sudden display of sentiment made him uncomfortable.

  She wiped her eyes. “When you didn’t come yesterday I thought maybe…maybe something had happened to you.”

  “Like what?” He felt vaguely alarmed at the way she wasn’t meeting his eyes.

  But she brushed that quickly aside, insisting that he stay long enough to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of milk. “We had real turkey at the parish Christmas dinner,” she told him proudly.

  “Good,” he said, swallowing a lump of dry bread and dry turkey. She had never been much of a cook—or even much of a sandwich maker, but then neither of those things was required to get into heaven.

  He thought of the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes at Little Fawn Lodge. It all seemed like a dream now. His eyes fell on the nativity meticulously arranged on the long table behind the sofa. The only time she�
�d ever slapped him was when she once found him playing with the nativity—he’d had a couple of those handsome hand-carved archangels holding earnest discussion with a couple of the tin reindeer requisitioned from the Christmas tree.

  She chattered on about midnight Mass and Father Brennan’s sermon, and then she jumped up and brought him a small gift from beneath the fake miniature Christmas tree perched on the dining room table and decorated with tattered ornaments he’d made through his school years.

  He put the sandwich aside and took the parcel. She stroked his back as he opened it, and he felt another flare of nervousness. He couldn’t remember her ever being so demonstrative since he had been a very small boy.

  The present was a pen, a very nice expensive pen. One of those Parker Blue Diamonds.

  “For the novels you’re going to write one day.” She swallowed hard as though she were ready to start weeping again. And, as he stared at her red-rimmed eyes, he realized she had been afraid that he had killed himself.

  “Thanks, Ma,” Nathan managed. He stared at the pen, and then he hurried through the rest of his sandwich, telling her that he had to get over to the paper right away.

  They were still celebrating at the Tribune-Herald. Several bottles of homemade hooch—mulled wine and that sort of thing—were circulating with a couple of trays of Christmas goodies—everything a little less sweet than it used to be because of sugar rationing.

  Nathan had a couple of drinks—fortifying himself after the visit to his mother—and spent the next few hours doing a little research and dodging his editor.

  “Sid Szabo,” he asked at large, remembering that overnight bag Szabo had toted away from Pearl’s rooming house. “He any relation to the Szabo Alligator Farm out in Lincoln Heights?”

  There was a bit of debate on this point—a few people holding out for the theory that Sid was more likely to be related to a snake farm if there was one available—and in the end Nathan took his coat and hat and left them still debating.