“Does it really matter to you?” he asked, more in pain than defiance.
But I had long ago stopped issuing blank checks on my emotions and I waited a moment too long to answer.
“That’s what I thought,” he said.
“What’s this about, Josh?”
Instead of answering, he turned away and quietly began to weep.
16
When he stopped crying, I asked, “Does this have anything to do with Jim?”
“Please hold me,” Josh said. I moved myself against him and took him in my arms, feeling the dull thud of his heart against my ribs. “I don’t want to talk now.”
I opened my mouth to speak but thought better of it. After a few minutes, Josh slipped into sleep. A long time later, I did, too.
When I woke Josh was standing beside me, dressed in jeans and a UCLA sweatshirt. He squinted at me through his glasses. It was plain that he was seeing a stranger.
“I’ll make you some breakfast,” he said, politely.
“Coffee will be fine.”
He nodded and left. I stretched my neck, shaking off the little aches that seemed to accumulate there as I got older, wiping the sleep from my eyes. The bathroom was steamy and smelled of Josh. A thin, suspicious face formed in the mirror. Deepening lines and graying hair foretold the coming of middle- age, what the French called — ironically, in my case — the age of discretion. I rinsed my mouth, showered, put on the clothes I had worn the night before, and followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen.
Josh stood at the stove scrambling eggs. He looked at me and said, “You should eat something.”
“Whatever you’re having.” I poured coffee into a mug from Disneyland and leaned against the counter, watching him.
“Do you ever stop thinking?” he asked.
“I did last night,” I replied. He stirred the eggs savagely.
“Lowered your standards, you mean.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He shut off the flame beneath the skillet and faced me.
“What were you going to tell me last night?”
“Nothing.”
I set my cup on the counter. “We shouldn’t start out by lying to each other.”
He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Sometimes I don’t think there is any love, just a kind of envy.” He looked at me. “I want to be who you are. What do you want from me, to be twenty-two again?”
“I think I’d better be on my way,” I said.
He started to say something but then simply nodded. I let myself out. I told myself I didn’t want to buy into his troubles, but I felt heavier going down the steps than I had coming up.
There was a black Mercedes parked in front of Larry’s house. The plate read gldnboy. I pulled into the driveway and went into the house. Tom Zane, Irene Gentry, and Sandy Blenheim were sitting in the big front room with Larry. The coffee table was littered with papers, coffee cups, and empty glasses. A half- empty bottle of Old Bushmill’s sat near an ashtray filled with cigarette butts.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Larry gave me a look that made me acutely aware that I was in the same clothes I had worn the night before. “I think you know everyone,” he said.
“Looks like someone got lucky last night,” Zane said.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said, and headed up the stairs without looking back. I changed clothes and called Freeman Vidor. He was surprised to hear from me.
“Read about you in the paper today,” he said. “D.A. dumped the Pears case.”
“Justice triumphs again,” I replied. Downstairs someone burst into loud laughter.
“You don’t sound like a happy man.”
From the window I watched shadows of clouds gather on the surface of Silver Lake. “It wasn’t exactly an acquittal.”
“He wasn’t exactly innocent.”
“There’s something I’d like you to look into.”
“We still talking about Pears?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t do pro bono,” he said.
“I’ll pay you the same rate we originally agreed on.”
“Go ahead.”
I told him about the missing bar key.
“That’s it?” His voice was incredulous. “You think someone broke in, slashed the Fox kid and left the knife in Pears’s hand?”
“I’m less interested in the bar key than I am in Josh Mandel,” I replied after a moment’s hesitation.
“What does that mean?”
“I think he’s concealing information about the case,” I replied. “I’d like you to find out what it is without approaching him.”
“I’m an investigator, Henry, not a psychic.”
There was more laughter from downstairs. “Then do what you have to do,” I replied.
“What do you think he knows?”
“I have no idea,” I said, irritably. “That’s what I’m hiring you to find out.”
“Uh-huh. You don’t want to talk to him because, why? You think he’ll run or… “ The sentence trailed off.
“I slept with him last night.”
Vidor said, “I’m glad I’m not your boyfriend.”
“Go to hell.”
“I’ll be in touch,” he replied. I set the phone down with a clang.
I was lying on the bed flipping through the pages of a mystery called The Vines of Ferrara. As I began the same paragraph for the fifth time, my attention wandered to the wall where, inexplicably, the shadows of the tree outside the window reminded me of Josh Mandel. That and everything else. What was this? Second adolescence? I picked up the book again and examined the cover.
There was a knock at the door. Expecting Larry, I hollered, “Come in.”
Irene Gentry stepped in. I hopped off the bed, buttoning my shirt.
“Sit down, Henry,” she said. She wore a suit in winter whites tailored to her body. It was quite a good body. “Do you mind if we visit for a while?”
“Of course not. Here,” I said, bringing a chair up to the bed. “Sit down.”
She arranged herself in the chair and extracted a silver cigarette case from her pocket. “May I?”
“Let me find you an ashtray.” The best I could do was the soap dish from the bathroom. I held it out to her. She smiled and set it at the edge of the bed.
She puffed on her cigarette like a stevedore and said, finally, “I hate Sandy Blenheim.”
“Any reason in particular?”
“It’s so obvious that Tom’s nothing to him but a meal ticket.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “He pushes Tom to take whatever crap’s offered to him. Anything to bring in money.” She paused and looked at me. “I suppose you wonder what Tom is to me.”
“It’s not my business to wonder that.”
She smiled without amusement. “I’ll tell you anyway, Henry, since you’re bound to hear rumors. I love
