him.”
In the musty stillness of the room, the words were startlingly clear. Rennie studied my face and said, “You seem surprised.”
“I’m sorry if I do.”
“We all love according to our natures,” she continued. “You, of all people, should understand that.”
“I don’t doubt you,” I replied.
“Scoot over,” she said, and kicked off her shoes. She climbed up on the bed beside me. “Larry says you’re from San Francisco.”
“Close enough,” I replied, and explained that I actually lived in a small university town on the peninsula.
“Linden University? Did you go to school there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s wonderful,” she replied, shifting her weight so that our bodies touched. “The closest I ever came to higher education was doing summer stock in Ann Arbor.”
I put my arm around her. Today she smelled faintly of lilac.
“May I ask you something?” she said, tipping her face toward mine.
“Sure.”
“Are you and Larry lovers?”
“No,” I replied.
“Oh,” she said perplexed. “I thought that’s why you were here, to take care of him.”
Since she had told me she knew Larry was sick, it didn’t seem worth being evasive. “Larry’s not the type to allow himself to be taken care of.”
“You don’t seem the type either,” she said. “Frankly — and I don’t mean this badly — that always surprises me in gay men. They often seem so needy.”
“Larry and I are just the other extreme,” I replied. “It’s a kind of psychological machismo. Not really much better than being constantly in need, when you get right down to it.”
“And then there’s Sandy,” she said, her shoulders stiffening. “He defies types. I wish I knew why Tom keeps him around.” She relaxed and said, “Is it really true that you don’t need anyone?”
Perhaps because I had been thinking of Josh, the question tugged at my guts.
She must have seen it in my face. “Have I touched a sore spot?” she asked gently.
“It’s just that I met someone.”
“Last night?”
I nodded.
She closed her hand around mine. “Then shouldn’t you be happy?”
“I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
“The unlikeliest matches do, you know,” she murmured.
Someone shouted her name from downstairs.
“Time to go,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “Will you come and have lunch with me day after tomorrow?”
“I’d love to,” I replied.
She put her shoes on, stood up and staightened her skirt. “Good, make it around noon. Larry can tell you where I live.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “He’s a fool if he lets you go,” she said.
“Larry?”
“You know who I mean. Goodbye, Henry.”
“Goodbye, Rennie,” I replied and listened as she made her way down the stairs. I got up and went to the window. The Zanes were getting into the black Mercedes, Tom in front and Rennie in back. Sandy Blenheim got into the driver’s seat. Sandy Blenheim was Gldnboy? Only in Hollywood, I thought, and watched as the car pulled away.
A few minutes later, Larry came in.
“They’re gone,” he announced, pacing the room.
“I heard them leave. I thought you weren’t taking new clients.”
He sat down. “I’m not. That was just a little consulting.”
“It looked like the IBM litigation to me.”
He picked up the soap dish that Rennie had used as an ashtray and lifted an eyebrow. “You and Mrs. Zane have a nice chat?”
“I like her,” I said, taking exception to his tone.
“That’s allowed, I suppose.”
“You don’t?”
He stood up and paced to the doorway of the study. “In this business it doesn’t pay to like anyone very much.” He ran his hand across a dusty bureau.
“That’s very cynical,” I said.
He smiled at me, wiping his dusty fingers on his trousers. “Are you going to tell me where you spent the night?”
“With Josh Mandel,” I said, amazed at how lightly I was able to speak his name.
“The waiter-witness?” Larry asked. “That’s a surprise.”
“To me, too,” I replied, not wanting to pursue it.
“Doesn’t the canon of ethics proscribe screwing witnesses? Except on the witness stand, I mean.”
“There is no case,” I snapped.
‘‘Sorry,” he said. He looked at me. “Was it that good, Henry?”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Evidently, it was,” he said as if to himself. “Forgive me, I’m just jealous.”
“You needn’t be,” I replied. “I don’t expect I’ll be seeing him again.”
He sat at the foot of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “I’m being a bitch.” He held out his hand to me. “Friends?”
I took his hand and smiled. “Friends.”
“Let me take you to lunch.”
“Okay.”
He stood up and looked around. “I haven’t been up here in a long time,” he said. “Never did like this room. Come get me when you’re ready.”
Only after he left did I remember that his lover, Ned, had killed himself here.
17
It was one of those winter days in Los Angeles when the wind has swept away the smog and the air is clear and the light still and everything has the immediacy of a dream. I parked on a street called Overland in the Hollywood Hills. It was lined with white-skinned birch trees. Their nude branches shimmered against the sky. Tattered yellow leaves clogged the gutters and the air was scented with the rainy smell of eucalyptus. There were no cars on the street and the houses were barely visible behind walls and fences and sweeping lawns that had never been trod upon except by gardeners.
I pressed the intercom button on a white wall. A moment later Rennie asked, “Henry?”
“Yes, it’s me.’’
“You’re on time,’’ she observed.
“A bad habit of mine.”
There was a buzz and I pushed a wooden door and found myself in a courtyard paved with cobblestones and lined with pots that bore flowering plants and miniature fruit trees. I crossed to the house, where a door formed of planks opened. Rennie stood in the doorway. Her hair was pulled back from her head. She wore black pants and a loose silk blouse the color of the sky. Three strands of pearls hung around her neck.
“Come inside,” she said, after kissing me lightly on the lips.
