looked away to the patio.
Fred swept Maurice up in his beery trucker’s arms, whirling him around and around in the flickering light. Maurice threw his head back in blissful surrender, his long white hair falling free, a look of pure rapture on his candlelit face.
When I glanced back at the stairway, the man who called himself Jim Lee had crossed the last step and disappeared into the shadows beyond.
Chapter Fourteen
The winds stopped sometime during the night, and the heat broke before dawn.
I slept fitfully for a few hours, twisting in the single sheet that half-covered me, gripped in a feverish dream filled with flying horses that crashed screaming to earth, desperately flapping wings that no longer worked.
When I woke suddenly, bathed in perspiration, I reached for Jacques until I remembered once again that he was gone. As I settled back down, staring at the ceiling, I could still smell Jim Lee in the sheets and feel the dampness we’d made. But as the minutes passed, it was the image of Paul Masterman, Jr., that fixed itself in my mind.
I wondered if his lovely, well-veined arms were wrapped around his pregnant wife, as their bedroom filled with the same early morning light that was now insinuating itself into mine. I wondered if they made love frequently, and how. I envisioned his body, lean and hard, naked and straining, as he did with his formless, faceless wife what I wished I might do with him.
I finally rolled over on my belly, pressing myself against the mattress in longing that I knew was as foolish and futile as it was aching and intense.
I must have drifted back to sleep, because the next thing I heard was Maurice, tapping lightly outside, then his nimble footsteps on the stairs.
From the window, I saw him hurry down the end of the driveway, where Fred waited with the Jeep running. Then they drove off to their weekly stint as volunteers at the Chris Brownlie AIDS Hospice, where Maurice tended to the needs of the dying, and Fred to the leaky plumbing.
I opened the door to find a tray of coffee, bagels, cream cheese, and fruit, just the way Maurice had so often left one for Jacques after he’d gotten sick. There was even the same little packet of vitamins and a yellow rose, the flower of hope, rising on a thorny stem from a thrift store crystal vase.
I placed the rose between the photographs of Jacques and Elizabeth Jane, then ate, showered, and shaved.
It was almost ten when I drove to the nearest telephone company office, where I used most of Harry’s remaining cash to order a phone installed.
I also made two calls. One was to the home of Billy Lusk’s mother and stepfather, where I reached their answering machine and hung up without leaving a message. The other was to Derek Brunheim, Billy’s former roommate, who told me I was welcome to drop by that morning.
I spent the rest of Harry’s money to fill the Mustang’s tank, then drove southeast into the mid-Wilshire district, where Brunheim rented an apartment in an elegant older building near the museums.
At the entrance, I ran into a finely dressed, white-haired woman juggling groceries and a set of keys. I held the door open for her and she thanked me, smiling sweetly.
I told her I was there to visit Derek Brunheim, and wondered if she knew him.
“Oh, yes, he’s just two units down from me.”
She asked if Brunheim and I were friends. I told her I was from the Sun .
She frowned, shaking her head.
“It’s terrible, just terrible what happened to his friend. Mr. Brunheim was so devoted to that boy.”
I offered to carry her bags, and she continued talking as she transferred them to my outstretched arms.
“William liked to sun himself down by the pool—he was very careful about his tan, you know. Mr. Brunheim would bring magazines down, or a cold drink, without even being asked. Sometimes, he’d rub lotion all up and down William’s back and legs; he did it with such care.”
She pressed knobby, arthritic fingers
Fred swept Maurice up in his beery trucker’s arms, whirling him around and around in the flickering light. Maurice threw his head back in blissful surrender, his long white hair falling free, a look of pure rapture on his candlelit face.
When I glanced back at the stairway, the man who called himself Jim Lee had crossed the last step and disappeared into the shadows beyond.
Chapter Fourteen
The winds stopped sometime during the night, and the heat broke before dawn.
I slept fitfully for a few hours, twisting in the single sheet that half-covered me, gripped in a feverish dream filled with flying horses that crashed screaming to earth, desperately flapping wings that no longer worked.
When I woke suddenly, bathed in perspiration, I reached for Jacques until I remembered once again that he was gone. As I settled back down, staring at the ceiling, I could still smell Jim Lee in the sheets and feel the dampness we’d made. But as the minutes passed, it was the image of Paul Masterman, Jr., that fixed itself in my mind.
I wondered if his lovely, well-veined arms were wrapped around his pregnant wife, as their bedroom filled with the same early morning light that was now insinuating itself into mine. I wondered if they made love frequently, and how. I envisioned his body, lean and hard, naked and straining, as he did with his formless, faceless wife what I wished I might do with him.
I finally rolled over on my belly, pressing myself against the mattress in longing that I knew was as foolish and futile as it was aching and intense.
I must have drifted back to sleep, because the next thing I heard was Maurice, tapping lightly outside, then his nimble footsteps on the stairs.
From the window, I saw him hurry down the end of the driveway, where Fred waited with the Jeep running. Then they drove off to their weekly stint as volunteers at the Chris Brownlie AIDS Hospice, where Maurice tended to the needs of the dying, and Fred to the leaky plumbing.
I opened the door to find a tray of coffee, bagels, cream cheese, and fruit, just the way Maurice had so often left one for Jacques after he’d gotten sick. There was even the same little packet of vitamins and a yellow rose, the flower of hope, rising on a thorny stem from a thrift store crystal vase.
I placed the rose between the photographs of Jacques and Elizabeth Jane, then ate, showered, and shaved.
It was almost ten when I drove to the nearest telephone company office, where I used most of Harry’s remaining cash to order a phone installed.
I also made two calls. One was to the home of Billy Lusk’s mother and stepfather, where I reached their answering machine and hung up without leaving a message. The other was to Derek Brunheim, Billy’s former roommate, who told me I was welcome to drop by that morning.
I spent the rest of Harry’s money to fill the Mustang’s tank, then drove southeast into the mid-Wilshire district, where Brunheim rented an apartment in an elegant older building near the museums.
At the entrance, I ran into a finely dressed, white-haired woman juggling groceries and a set of keys. I held the door open for her and she thanked me, smiling sweetly.
I told her I was there to visit Derek Brunheim, and wondered if she knew him.
“Oh, yes, he’s just two units down from me.”
She asked if Brunheim and I were friends. I told her I was from the Sun .
She frowned, shaking her head.
“It’s terrible, just terrible what happened to his friend. Mr. Brunheim was so devoted to that boy.”
I offered to carry her bags, and she continued talking as she transferred them to my outstretched arms.
“William liked to sun himself down by the pool—he was very careful about his tan, you know. Mr. Brunheim would bring magazines down, or a cold drink, without even being asked. Sometimes, he’d rub lotion all up and down William’s back and legs; he did it with such care.”
She pressed knobby, arthritic fingers
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