Missing

by Jonathan Valin

  “There was also an incident with a teacher of his—Mason Greenleaf?”

  I expected her to turn red, like her husband had, at the mention of Mason’s name. To my surprise she had just the opposite reaction, shrinking back into the couch with a shiver, as if she’d felt someone step on her grave.

  “I could use a drink,” she said with a grotesque smile. “How ‘bout you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, patting around the coffee table like she’d misplaced her glass. I spotted a tea tray on the opposite side of the room, near a picture window looking out on the illuminated green oval of the CTC parking lot and the dark night that surrounded it like a woods. I got up and fetched her a tumbler, setting it down by the bottle.

  “Thank you,” she said, sounding genuinely grateful.

  She poured a stiff shot and brought the glass to her mouth with both hands, shutting her eyes as she drank. It was enough to bring her back into focus, although I knew from experience she’d drift away again before long.

  “Mason Greenleaf?” I said again.

  She nodded, setting the glass back down. “It was a tragic thing. Very tragic. You know we were all so upset about . . . when Paulie was arrested in the park. And we didn’t know what to do, or why it had happened. And Paulie was so frightened, so very frightened.” Her voice filled with sympathy for her son. “The policemen had told Paul Senior that in cases like Paulie’s, there was always an adult who . . . someone who . . .”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say it, so I said it for her. “Seduced the boy?”

  She nodded and took another drink. “You know, Paul Senior was always such a disciplinarian. He never tried to understand Paulie’s needs. Or anyone else’s needs,” she said with casual bitterness. “I couldn’t live with a man like that. Neither could my son. So I left him and took Paulie with me. But Paulie suffered without a man’s guidance. I couldn’t give him that. And of course his father wouldn’t help unless Paulie did things his way. So when this other man, Mason Greenleaf, took such an interest in Paulie, why, I thought it was a blessing. Paulie just seemed to blossom after he befriended him. He blossomed. But then this thing happened, this mistaken thing in the park. And Paul was so angry, and Paulie was frightened. And the police were so sure there had been—what you said. They told Paul that it wasn’t Paulie’s fault, that if we found this other man, they would drop the charges. And Paulie . . . he finally admitted who it was to Paul.”

  She smiled a sick smile. “I never would’ve guessed it was Mr. Greenleaf.”

  The way she’d told the story, I suspected that it had come as a surprise to Greenleaf, too. It sounded to me as if he’d been deliberately sacrificed by the boy’s father—and possibly by the boy himself—to keep little Paulie out of the newspapers. But the fact that he’d been set up didn’t mean that Mason hadn’t been guilty of some kind of misbehavior with Paul Grandin, Jr. Indeed, his subsequent behavior toward Paul was hard to explain as anything but an admission of guilt—or partial guilt.

  “There were some letters Greenleaf wrote,” I said.

  Sarah Grandin smiled fondly. “Beautiful letters. I read them over with Paulie several times. Full of confidence in him. And affection. And of course, he kept sending Paulie money, too. Little sums to buy himself treats and to treat his friends.” Her smile went away. “Of course, Paul never gave Paulie a dime. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to give him money out of the alimony payments, because his father is so cheap and vindictive toward me.”

  I suppose I could have asked her a dozen more questions and gotten the same vague, boozy, dishonest answers. But it was Paul Grandin, Jr., I needed to talk to.

  “Mrs. Grandin,” I said, “it’s very important that I talk to your son. Do you know where he is staying?”

  “He’s in town. He’s with friends.”

  “Which friends?”

  She shifted her eyes wildly, as if she were coming to the sharp edge of that corner I’d backed her into. “I have it written down. Do you need me to . . . ?”

  “Get it,” I said coldly, like a cop.

  23

  THE ADDRESS that Sarah Grandin gave me was on St. Paul Street in the nice part of Eden Park, a well-tended Cape Cod bungalow with white clapboard siding and sky-blue trim that ran around doors and windows like the bunting on a sailor suit. I’d just made it up from the street and onto the stoop when it began to rain. I had felt it gathering as I drove across town from Rue de la Paix. The first wave hit as I knocked on the door, washing up and down St. Paul in heavy windblown gusts.

  I knocked at the door again—hard—and a short, trim, gray-haired man with a thin birdlike face and darting birdlike eyes answered. He was wearing the day’s end remains of a business suit—white dress shirt, gray pinstripe slacks, red bowtie still knotted at the collar twelve or thirteen hours after he’d put it on. A sheet of newspaper dangled from his right hand like a hankie he couldn’t shake loose.

  “What is it?” he said in a high-pitched, nervous voice.

  “Are you Charles Rodner?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “My name is Stoner, Mr. Rodner. I’m a private detective.”

  I reached into my coat and pulled out my wallet, showing him the photostat of my PI license. He took it in with astonishment, making a little O with his mouth and capping it with the tip of his right hand.

  “I’m looking for Paul Grandin, Jr.,” I said, pocketing the ID. “His mother, Sarah, told me I could find him here.”

  The man’s face went pale. “You say his mother told you he was here?”

  He chewed his lip, as if that was hard to believe or as if he just didn’t want to believe it—that Paul’s mother was handing out his name and address to detectives.

  He wasn’t what I’d expected, either. I thought I’d find Grandin with another version of Tim Bristol. But Rodner was closer to my age—mid-fifties, actually—and as respectable as a church deacon. I figured him for P&G bookkeeping, which would account for the pallor and the obvious case of nerves when I showed up asking for Paul. It passed through my mind that Rodner fit the description of the well-dressed older man that Greenleaf had been drinking with at Stacie’s bar.

  I stepped a little to my right to dodge the rain that was coming off the eaves in a steady stream. “Look, I’m getting soaked here, Mr. Rodner. Do you think I could come inside?”

  The man shied away from the door as if I’d thrown a punch—as if that was how anything disagreeable affected him. I could already see what Paul Grandin, Jr., liked about him: he didn’t know how to put up a fight. It made it less likely that he’d been the angry man in the bar.

  “Come in,” he said, waving the newspaper.

  I stepped into a short hall. To my right, a portal opened on a parlor, furnished in antiques and near-antiques. A lot of rich mahogany with well-turned legs and tapered feet. A lot of faded floral print on tuxedo sofa cushions and chairs. Persian throws. A heavy sideboard with a quart of Cutty sitting like a teapot on a silver tray, surrounded by cut crystal that glimmered in the lamplight. Photos framed in silver on the mantel and sideboard, too. Landscape oils on the wall, one of them a Constable. The room smacked of money scrupulously saved and scrupulously spent, of nostalgia and loneliness. One of the photos on the sideboard pictured an older woman with fine-spun gray hair and Charles Rodner’s chiseled birdlike features. It took me a moment to realize that all the photos were of the same woman, taken at various points in her life from childhood to stately old age.

  Rodner saw me looking at one of them and ran a finger across the top of its silver frame. “My mother,” he said fondly. “She lived with me here for forty-nine years. This was her house before it became mine.”

  “You’ve lived here a long time,” I said, brushing my slacks off before I sat down gingerly on one of his flowerbed chairs.

  He sat down across from me, resting his chin on his right fist. “Yes. I should move, really. The neighborhood’s changed so much—it’s become dangerous. But I like being nea
r the park. And I do rent the upstairs rooms to boarders, so I’m not completely alone.”

  Frightened perhaps by the storm, a black cat wandered in, curling like ivy around the legs of the sideboard. It wandered over by Rodner, who dropped his left hand over the side of his chair and petted it idly.

  “I might as well tell you right off that I don’t know where Paul is.” He scooped the cat up with both hands and deposited it in his lap, stroking it down its back. “In fact, I’m appalled that he gave his mother my address. I assume you are working for his mother?”

  It was a fair assumption, and as it seemed to be agreeable to the man, I confirmed it with a nod.

  “Truth be told, I haven’t seen Paul in several weeks. Before he showed up that Sunday afternoon, I hadn’t seen him in months, not since he roomed upstairs.”

  “When was he a boarder here?”

  “In the late spring of this year. As I said, I occasionally rent the upstairs to young men and women. Particularly youngsters who are involved with the theater. I’m a patron of the Playhouse, and I always try to do my bit to help young actors out. I guess I wanted to be an actor myself.”

  He shot a dark look at Mom, still sitting on the mantel as she’d sat on his ambitions. “Anyway, Paul was one of the youngsters I’ve tried to help. I met him at a Playhouse function. Someone told me that he was a talented boy and that he was having a hard time making his way as an actor. So I offered him a room in exchange for doing some household chores and maintenance.”

  Charles Rodner shook his tiny head. “He was not—I’m afraid—a good worker. So our bargain didn’t last very long. Paul was full of charming excuses but not dependable and somewhat dishonest. I felt sorry for him and was perhaps overly generous at first when it came to lending him money. But he never repaid me and, in fact, began to steal things from my home to pawn or sell. He did other things too—dishonest things, hurtful and petty. I won’t be taken advantage of.” He glanced down at the cat and repeated it firmly, as he stroked its glistening back. “I will not be taken advantage of.”

  I assumed that that was about as resolute as Charles Rodner got. While writing people off didn’t seem in character for him, I had the feeling that once they were written out, they stayed out. Which meant that Paul Grandin must have been awfully damn desperate to have returned to the man’s house.

  “Do you remember what day it was that Paul showed up here?”

  “Yes. It was July fourteenth. I remember because it was my mother’s birthday, and I’d intended to spend the evening alone. Out of the blue Paul appeared on my doorstep. Apparently there had been some . . . unpleasantness and he’d spent a night in jail. Anyway, he was desperately in need of a place to stay. I allowed him to remain here for the night.” He held up a forefinger. “Just the night.”

  “Did he tell you why he’d gone to jail?”

  Rodner stroked the cat and smiled a dainty smile. “Paul had managed to get himself in a bit of trouble in a bar, flirting with the wrong company. I think he was hoping that I would help him settle the matter. Quite frankly, I had the feeling that I was not the first person he had turned to in his hour of need. Later that evening, he admitted that he’d spent the weekend visiting other friends, hopping from house to house, looking for someone to help him. He seemed fairly desperate. He didn’t look at all well, either,” the man said cheerily. “He said he’d been ill.”

  “Did he mention visiting a man named Mason Greenleaf?”

  “Greenleaf? Who would that be?”

  “An old friend of Paul’s. He lives in Mount Adams, too. On Celestial Street.”

  “He may have mentioned him, among others whom he’d visited before coming to me. Frankly, I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to his ramblings. I confess I rather enjoyed seeing Paul Grandin humbled.”

  “I don’t suppose you know where I could find Paul now, do you?”

  Rodner laughed disturbingly. The sudden noise made the cat hiss and leap from his lap. Apparently it scratched him as it jumped to the floor because he kicked at it angrily and cursed: “You hurt me, you bitch!”

  His face twisted with pain and the embarrassment of showing it. Blushing, he rubbed his pant leg and bit his lip.

  “I’m going to have to put some peroxide on this,” he said with a whine.

  “I just have a few more questions.”

  Struggling to his feet, he stared at me as if I’d clawed him.

  “There is nothing more to say. Paul came to me because he had nowhere else to go. In all his life he was never truthful to anyone, and in the end his lies were repaid by ordinary contempt. He had approached many people over the weekend, and in each case he met with the same scorn and rejection. He was no longer the fair-haired boy blessed with the devil’s own looks and charm. That time had passed. He was twenty-six, and he looked ten years older. Hair greasy, teeth green, clothes slept in, his charm reduced to a most pathetic attempt to play on my affection, in order to get himself out of yet another jam. But I knew Paul and saw through him and would not allow myself to be taken advantage of again. I got what I wanted from him. He got nothing from me.”

  Rodner put a hand on his knee, wincing as if the pain from the scratch were intolerable—a weak, effeminate man with an ugly streak of vindictiveness that he’d gotten his chance to exercise in full, like a boy who’d held his breath long enough to get his way. “Now I want you to leave. And please inform Paul’s mother—and Paul himself, if you see him—that I never want to see his shabby face again.”

  ******

  I walked back out to the car, through the rain, thinking about Paul Grandin’s desperation. He’d been arrested on the twenty-ninth and spent the night in jail. A week and a half later, he’d met with Mason Greenleaf at Nine Mile, probably looking for the same kind of help that he eventually sought from Rodner. What had passed between them, no one but Paul Grandin knew. But I couldn’t see Mason involving himself in another criminal solicitation case—no matter how responsible he felt toward the boy. For that matter, I didn’t know what kind of help Mason—or anyone else—could have been to Grandin. Short of trying to bribe the police into dropping the charges, there was little that anyone could do for the kid. He was going to jail this time. That was obvious.

  Whatever Paul Grandin had wanted from Mason, he clearly hadn’t gotten it, or he wouldn’t haven ended up with Rodner on Sunday night, six days later. The very fact that he’d ended up with Rodner at all, a man who hated him, bespoke his desperation. The kid must have lost his job soon after he talked to Greenleaf. He had no permanent place to stay. He’d been bouncing from old friend to old friend, wearing out a welcome that was already threadbare. His mother had handed his case over to lawyers. His peculiarly childish charm, that wounded helplessness that had kept Meisel and quite possibly Greenleaf himself in his corner, was failing him. Greenleaf himself was failing him.

  But then something had changed in Mason Greenleaf.

  Two days after he’d spoken to the kid, Mason had dropped out of his ordinary life, reemerging on the following Monday night to meet with Paul Grandin again and his gray-haired friend at Stacie’s bar—and subsequently, to check into the Washington Hotel and kill himself.

  Something had happened to him over that weekend, some change of mind or heart that had led him back to Paul Grandin and to his death. I didn’t know what had ultimately broken Greenleaf’s spirit, but I did know that finding Paul Grandin was the key.

  24

  IT WAS past eleven when I pulled up in front of the apartment on Ohio Avenue. There was a light in my bay window that I hadn’t turned on when I left the house. I parked on Warner and walked up through the rain to my door. I could hear Cindy moving around inside, then I saw her through the curtains, as she walked over to the couch. I watched her for a while through the window, liking the fact that she was there—the freshness of it. I liked the way she looked as she cozied up on the couch, tucking her feet under her butt, holding her curly hair back from her forehead, reading a l
etter she held in her right hand.

  As I unlocked the door and stepped into the narrow hall, she dropped the letter, jumped up, and ran over to me, smiling.

  I kissed her mouth and kissed her again.

  “My Lord,” she said. “That was a nice welcome.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Yeah? I’m glad I’m here, too. I like your things. Your books and records. We had a little get-acquainted chat while I read.”

  I glanced at the couch, where a pile of mail was sitting on the cushions.

  “I stopped at Mason’s house,” she said, “on my way over here. I just couldn’t stand the thought of all those unopened letters piling up on his porch.”

  “I don’t suppose you found one from Paul Grandin, Jr.?”

  She gave me an odd look. “Why did you say that?”

  I went ahead and told her what I suspected. “I’m pretty sure he had something to do with Mason’s suicide.”

  I explained what I’d learned about the first solicitation bust immediately preceding Mason’s arrest, about the money that Mason had been doling out to the boy, about Grandin’s second arrest in late June, about his meeting with Mason at Nine Mile soon after, about the kid’s desperate search for shelter during the week that Mason had disappeared, and about their subsequent meeting at the bar on the night of Mason’s death. The way the case was shaping up, there was no way around Paul Grandin, Jr.—and his relationship with Mason Greenleaf.

  As I spoke, Cindy sank down on the couch, staring morbidly at the far wall. “Mason didn’t talk about Paul much,” she said when I’d finished. “But I knew that they were still friends. I even saw him at the house a couple of times, just after Mason and I first met. Once Mason and I started living together, Paul didn’t come by. Still, there was something between them. I’m not sure what. But Mason always acted guilty when Paul’s name came up. At first I thought maybe he had slept with him—sometime that summer after the kid graduated from high school, before he went off to drama camp. But once I got to know Mason I realized it was so out of character for him to do something like that that I began to think it was something else—something that stretched way back into Mason’s past. The kid was very lazy, self-centered, and manipulative, I could see for myself. And Mason was no dummy when it came to being manipulated by lazy, self-centered friends. What I ended up thinking was that Paul reminded Mason of his roommate, Ralph Cable, and that he put up with the kid’s shenanigans as a kind of penance for turning his back on Ralph.”