Private Eyes

***

I made a three-point turn and headed back for the highway.

Older man and young stud.

Older man with a mustache and a tan.

Lots of tan, mustachioed gay men in L.A. Lots of white Mercedes.

But if Don Ramp drove a white 560 SEC with brushed-steel wheels, I was willing to go out on a limb and assume.

I joined the southbound traffic on PCH and drove home assuming even without proof. Casting Ramp as Nyquist’s lover and recasting the tension that I’d witnessed between Nyquist and Gina.

Another macho charade on his part?

Anger on hers?

Did she know?

Did that have something to do with her hints about making a life-style change?

Separate bedrooms.

Separate bank accounts.

Separate lives.

Or had she known about Ramp when she’d married him?

Why, after living a bachelor life for so long, had he married her?

Gina’s banker and lawyer seemed certain it hadn’t been for money, citing the prenuptial agreement as proof.

But prenuptials- and wills- could be contested. And life-insurance policies could be taken out without bankers and lawyers being informed.

Or perhaps inheritance had nothing to do with it. Maybe Ramp simply needed a cover for the good, conservative folks of San Labrador.

Hearth and home and a child who hated his guts.

What could be more all-American?

22

I got home just after five. Milo was out. He’d recorded a new greeting on his machine. No more misanthropy. Businesslike: Please leave your message. I asked him to please call when he had a chance.

I phoned San Labrador and got Madeleine.

Mademoiselle Melissa was not feeling well. She was sleeping.

Non, Monsieur was not there, either.

A catch in her voice. Click.

I paid bills, straightened the house, fed the fish some more and noticed that they looked tired- especially the females. Did thirty minutes on the ski machine and showered.

Next time I looked at my watch, it was seven-thirty.

Friday night.

Date night.

Without thinking it through, I called San Antonio. A man answered with a wary “Hello?” When I asked for Linda, he said, “Who’s this?”

“A friend from Los Angeles.”

“Oh. She’s over at Behar- at the hospital.”

“Her dad?”

“Yeah. This is Conroy, her uncle- his brother. I’m over from Houston, came down today.”

“Alex Delaware, Mr. Overstreet. I’m a friend from L.A. Hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I’d like to hope, too, but I’m sorry to say that’s not the case. My brother passed out this morning. They revived him but it wasn’t easy- some kinda problem with circulation and the kidneys. They’ve got him over in intensive care. The whole family’s over there. I just came back to get some things and caught your call.”

“I won’t keep you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Please tell Linda I called. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, sir. Thank you for offering.”

Click.

***

Wrong reason to do it, but I did it anyway.

“Hello.”

“Alex! How are you?”

“Got a date tonight?”

She laughed. “A date? No, just sitting here by the phone.”

“Care to change your luck?”

More laughter. Why did it sound so good?

“Hmm, I don’t know,” she said. “My mother always told me not to go out with any boy who didn’t ask by Wednesday night.”

“Good old Mom.”

“Then again, she was full of shit about lots of other things. What time?”

“Half an hour.”

***

She came out of the front door of her studio just as I pulled in front of the building. She was wearing a thin black silk turtleneck and tight black jeans tucked into black suede boots. Lips glossed, eyes shadowed, curls full and gleaming. I wanted her, badly. Before I could get out, she opened her own door, scooted next to me, radiating heat. One hand in my hair. Kissing me before I had a chance to catch my breath.

We necked fiercely. She bit me a couple of times, seemed almost angry. Just as I ran out of breath, she broke it off and said, “What’s for dinner?”

“I was thinking Chinese.” Thinking of all the times we’d eaten takeout in bed. “Of course, we could call out for it and stay here.”

“Never mind that. I want a date.”

We drove to a place in Brentwood- the standard Mandarin/Szechuan menu and paper lanterns, but always reliable- and feasted for an hour, then headed over to a comedy club in Hollywood. A lighthearted place we used to enjoy together. Neither of us had been there with anyone else.

The ambience was different now: black felt walls, murderous looking bouncers with ponytails and steroid complexions. Calcutta level density, stale smoke, and hostility. Tables crowded with heavy-eyed night-crawlers and their significant others, coming down from one trip or another, demanding an entertainment-fix or else.

The first few acts were raw meat for that crowd- mumble-mouthed novice stand-ups reciting the stuff that had always cracked up their friends but didn’t make the transition to Sunset Boulevard. Sad clowns veering wildly, like drunks on ice skates- staggering between silences more painful than any I’d encountered doing therapy and stutter-bursts of manic word salad. Just before midnight, things got more polished but no more friendly: slick, trendily dressed young men and women who’d been shaped on the late night talk show lathe, spitting out the four-