Simple Justice by John Morgan Wilson Page A

lightly to my forearm.
    “Not that I pry, mind you. It’s just that I can see the pool area from my kitchen window, and there are certain things one can’t help noticing.”
    We crossed a flagstone courtyard shaded by towering bird of paradise trees and colorful climbing bougainvillea so thick you could no longer see the trellises. From around a corner came the reverberating hum of a diving board in motion, then the sharp splash of a body parting water. It was all very Southern California, very David Hockneyish, and not at all difficult to picture Billy Lusk lying poolside, sleek in bikini Speedos and languid with thoughts of his own beauty.
    “William was under the weather now and then,” the old woman went on, as we entered an elevator. “Mr. Brunheim would put aside his work for days on end to tend to him. Nasal problems, for one thing, and not the normal kind.”
    She lowered her voice to a whisper, even though we were alone.
    “We think it was D-R-U-G-S. You know, cocaine. But, of course, you hear all kinds of things, so I simply pay no attention to any of it.”
    We reached her apartment. She turned her key in the lock, opened the door, and took the bags.
    “I’ve also heard that Mr. Brunheim has some health problems of his own, if you know what I mean. But please, not a word about it.”
    I promised to keep it to myself.
    She told me Brunheim’s apartment was two doors farther down, and asked me to pass along her sympathies.
    “Mrs. Ashburn,” she said. “Unit 216.”
     

Chapter Fifteen
     
    I pressed the buzzer outside apartment 220 and heard the yip of a small dog within.
    Moments later, Derek Brunheim opened the door. Under one of his corpulent arms was tucked a squirming ball of fluffy white fur with just enough meat on it for a good sandwich.
    I told him who I was. He looked me over.
    “You’ll do just fine, dear,” he said, and showed me in.
    Brunheim was even bigger in person than he’d appeared during his TV interview, roughly the same height and heft as Jefferson Bellworthy, but without the muscle tone.
    A pair of unpressed Bermuda shorts and a faded “Queer Nation” T-shirt barely covered the bulkiest sections of his furry body. His feet were tucked into a pair of blue bunny slippers, and I noticed several purple lesions on his hairy shins. Thick dark curls massed in uncombed tangles around the widening bald spot atop his large head. A dense carpet of beard, probably only one or two day’s growth, helped camouflage the craters of his pockmarked face.
    As he led me into the apartment, it was with the uninhibited manner of a man who had long ago accepted the effeminacy he was born with, and had no intention of apologizing for it to anyone.
    “Forgive the mess,” he said, with a wave of one hand across a room that was cluttered but carefully arranged.
    He gathered up a stack of bills from the dining room table, along with a set of personal checks designed in pastel floral print.
    “I haven’t tidied up since Monday,” he said, tucking the checks quickly away. “Ordinarily, I’m quite the little housekeeper. But tragedy tends to interrupt one’s routine.”
    We stepped into a musty living room crammed with antique furniture. Crystal or china bric-a-brac filled every nook and cranny. Where there weren’t oil paintings and mirrors in grandiose frames, the walls were covered with gay lib posters stretching back to the early Seventies and more recent placards bearing references to ACT UP, the Minority AIDS Project, and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
    I felt like I’d entered a gay-owned collectibles store on a low-rent stretch of Melrose Avenue; the only thing missing was the Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.
    “Those are from my formative years as a flaming firebrand,” Brunheim said, when he saw me looking over the posters from the early Seventies. “Kicking down the barricades before it became fun and fashionable.”
    “You don’t look old enough to have been involved in the early