Driving back from Malibu I got caught in a traffic jam on Sunset just west of UCLA and arrived at Josh’s apartment twenty minutes late. Freeman was leaning over the railing on the second floor landing tipping cigarette ash into a potted plant. When he saw me, he made a show of consulting his Rolex.
“Traffic,” I explained, coming up the stairs.
The door to the apartment was open. “And here I thought you were just being fashionably late.”
“Is anyone home?” I asked, indicating the door.
“Come in and see for yourself,” he said, and led the way. As soon as we stepped in, he disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later he came back with a bottle of beer. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll take notes.”
There was a cigarette butt in the ashtray on the coffee table. Not a Winston, Josh’s brand, but a Merit — what Freeman smoked. Otherwise the living room looked just as it had two nights earlier. Freeman followed me into the bedroom. The bed had been hastily thrown together, a blue blanket slipping to the floor beneath a red comforter, but this looked to be its normal condition. I sat down and examined the contents of the night stand. They consisted of a paperback edition of Siddhartha, fourteen pennies, a pack of matches from the Yellowtail, and an empty water glass smudged with fingerprints, some of them, doubtless, mine.
Freeman picked up the book and said, “I never could get into this.”
“You just weren’t a hippie.”
“Can’t say that I was,” Freeman agreed pleasantly.
I went through the bureau. The sock and underwear drawers were cleaned out but another drawer held a few shirts. A couple of other shirts hung in the closet along with some slacks and a herringbone sports coat.
“He plans to come back,” I said.
“Good sleuthing,” Freeman replied, behind me.
I walked into the bathroom. A moment later I came back out into the bedroom smiling.
“Don’t tell me,” Freeman said. “He’s in the shower just like Bobby Ewing.”
“He took his dirty laundry with him.”
“Huh?”
“His dirty laundry. It was in a hamper in the bathroom. The hamper’s empty.”
Freeman took a slow swallow of beer, brought the bottle down and smiled. “He’s gone home to his mama,” he said.
It was a quiet house on an unremarkable suburban street. I brought my car to a stop and looked at the place. Above it, the enormous, urban sky was darkening as sunset broke apart like colored smoke and drifted upward to where a few stars already shone. The house’s stucco facade was faced with beams of polished wood, giving it a vaguely Elizabethan look. In the yard, a big willow trickled yellow leaves. I got out of my car and walked to the door. A small, dark-haired woman with a face shaped like a heart responded to my knocking.
“Mrs. Mandel?”
“Yes,” she said, her forehead worried.
“Is Josh here?”
“No,” she lied. “Who are you?”
I’m his friend,” I said. “Please, I have to see him.” “Really,” she began, but a hand appeared on the edge of the door above her head and pulled the door back. Josh was wearing his red sweater.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he said. “This is just my friend, Henry.” “Can I talk to you Josh?”
“Come on in,” Josh said.
He led me back to a big, well-lit room that smelled of furniture polish and rosewood. A pot of yellow chrysanthemums matched the blaze in the fireplace. The television was tuned to a football game and there was a bowl of popcorn on the seat of the armchair from which Josh had been watching the game. Mrs. Mandel had followed us into the room.
“Mom, we need to talk alone.”
“Joshua, who is this man?”
“I told you, he’s my friend. He’s here to help me. Right, Henry?”
“Yes.” I looked at Mrs. Mandel. “I’m a lawyer, Mrs. Mandel. I’m working on the Jim Pears case. Are you familiar with it?”
“That was the boy at the restaurant.”
“I’m his lawyer. I need to ask Josh a few questions.”
She looked back and forth at us. “I’ll make you some tea,” she said, decisively.
“Thank you.”
She fluttered out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“She seems nice,” I told Josh.
“She is,” he replied and looked at me stonily. “How did you find me?”
“This is the third house I’ve been to,” I replied. “There are a lot of Mandels in Sherman Oaks.”
He tried not to smile.
“Why didn’t you go meet Freeman?”
“You think I killed Brian, don’t you?”
I drew a deep silent breath and asked, “Did you?”
There was a lot working on Josh’s face. I was relieved to see that most of it was anger. “No,” he snapped.
“I believe you, Josh.”
“To hell with what you believe, Henry.”
It was only when he dropped into an armchair that I realized we’d both been standing. I sat down on the sofa. He stuck his hand into the cushions and brought up a grungy pack of Winstons. He lit one.
“Tell me where you were the night Brian was killed.”
He blew a shaky smoke ring with all the nonchalance of a ten-year-old and said, “I was with someone.”
“Am I supposed to remember all their names?”
“Stop it, Josh. I know you’re not like that.”
“Doug,” he said. “He lives in a split-level condo on King’s Road and he has a hot tub on his deck. We sat in the hot tub and drank a bottle of wine and then he fucked me.” He glared at me.
“Is that the terrible secret you wouldn’t tell me the other night?”
“Don’t talk down to me,” he said, his fingers quivering. “And no, that’s not the terrible secret. Does it really matter to you?” This time I knew the right answer. “Yes,” I said.
He put the cigarette out and all the hardness slipped from his face. “Three months ago I got this little rash at the base of my — penis,” he said. “I panicked. I was sure it was AIDS, so I ran out and took the antibody test. The rash was just a rash — going too long without wearing shorts or something. But the test came back positive.”
“You know that test isn’t completely accurate,” I said, to cover the sudden pounding in my ears. “And anyway it only means you’ve been exposed to the virus, not that you’ll get AIDS.” My heart slowed down. “Half the gay men in California test positive.”
“Did you take the test?” Josh asked, glaring at me.
“Yes.”
“Did you test positive?”
“No,” I said, but added, “There are false negatives, too, Josh.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he snapped.
“I guess not.” I looked at him. “Look, Josh — “
“That’s why I ran away,” he interrupted, “because I didn’t want to have to tell you. Because I didn’t tell you.” He paused. “Before we made love.”
“We didn’t do anything risky,” I replied.
“No,” he said scornfully, “it wasn’t worth it.”
“Jesus, Josh, did you want to infect me?”
He lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, Henry. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Then be quiet and listen to me,” I said.
He reached for his cigarettes.
“And don’t light another one of those.”
He dropped his hand. “Sorry,” he said.
“I’ve been driving all over L.A. looking for you,” I said, “and it wasn’t because I thought you killed Brian. Not really.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I’m thirty-six years old, Josh. You have no idea how old that sounds to me, especially when I wake up in the morning alone.” I paused. This was going to be harder than I thought. “I just have these feelings for you…” And then I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
He looked at me. “I love you, too.”
I nodded. “Then come here.” He rose from his chair and joined me on the couch.
He sniffed. A trickle of snot glistened under his nose. I gave him my handkerchief. He blew his nose gravely.
“I’m so scared,” he whispered, and began to cry.
I pulled him close and held him until I could feel the heat of his body through his sweater. I thought of all the rational things I should say but heard myself tell him, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He pulled away and looked at me, lifting his sleeve and wiping his nose. His eyes searched mine, slowly. I didn’t look away. We both knew that what I’d just said was, on one level, impossible and, therefore, untrue. And yet we both knew I meant it, which made it true on a different level, the one that mattered between us now.
He brought his face forward and we kissed.
Just then the door opened. I saw Mrs. Mandel out of the comer of my eye. Behind her came a man who I recognized from the picture at Josh’s apartment as Mr. Mandel.
“Joshua,” Mr. Mandel said, “what is this?”
We moved apart. Josh said, “Mom, Dad, you’d better sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.”
Over the next eight hours, Josh not only told his parents that he was gay but that we were lovers and about the result of the antibody test. Mr. Mandel ordered me out of the house, relented, and alternately screamed at and wept for his son. Mrs. Mandel seemed to have been rendered catatonic.
Then, after the hysterics came the hard talk. Josh’s sisters were called, one in Sacramento and one in Denver, and consulted. They came out heavily pro-Josh. His father brought down the Bible and read to us the passage in Leviticus that condemns homosexuality. That led to a long, rambling discussion about biblical fundamentalism which ended, predictably, in a stalemate.
Mrs. Mandel mourned for her unborn grandchildren. Josh said that he planned to have children. This silenced her. Silenced me, too. We talked for a long time about Jim Pears and how having to hide being gay had probably led him to kill someone. We talked about AIDS. This was the hardest part for all of us.
I argued that AIDS wasn’t divine retribution on gay people any more than Tay-Sachs disease was God’s commentary on Jews. Mr. Mandel bristled at the analogy but his wife diffused the tension with a series of surprisingly well-informed questions about AIDS. It occurred to me then that she had known Josh was gay all along. Even so, they both remained worried and frightened. So was Josh. So was I.
In the middle of all this, Mr. Mandel ordered pizza and we had an involved argument over the relative merits of anchovies. He and I wanted them. Josh and Mrs. Mandel resisted. The three of them went through a bottle of wine while I guzzled Perrier.
And then it was three o’clock in the morning and Mr. Mandel was apologizing for being sixty-two and needing his sleep.
Knees creaking and head throbbing, I got up to leave. “I need my coat,” I said to Josh who was sitting on it.
“Wait,” he said, amazement in his eyes. “You’re not going to drive all the way back to Silver Lake now, are you?”
A long complex silence ensued.
“It’s not that far,” I said.
“Come on, Henry. You’re exhausted.” Josh looked at his parents. “You can’t let him go out at this hour. The roads are full of drunks.”
“Joshua,” his father began.
“Dad,” he said in a whine he must have perfected as a child. “It’s just a matter of common courtesy. Let him sleep on the couch down here. Mom?”
“Silver Lake is — far away,” she said, tentatively, looking at her husband. Then, more confidently she added, “The sofa folds out and there’s a bathroom down here.”
“Well, I’m going to bed,” Mr. Mandel said “You want to stay Henry, stay.”
“Thank you,” I said to his back.
Mrs. Mandel opened a closet and pulled out some sheets and blankets. She put them on the couch.
“It folds out,” she said.
“Thanks.”
We looked at each other, then she looked at Josh. “Go to bed, Josh.”
“In a minute, Mom,” he said. “I’ll just help Henry with the couch.”
Defeated, she murmured her good-nights and slipped out of the room. We listened to her footsteps as she climbed the stairs.
“What a little brat you are,” I said.
“It isn’t over yet, you know,” Josh said.
“I know. I know.”
“It might go on forever.”
“One day at a time,” I said and nuzzled him. “I’m really tired.”
“Do you mind us not sleeping together?”
“This is their house,” I said. “Let’s make it easy on them. They’re probably upstairs awake as it is.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, smiling.
“Years of legal training,” I replied and kissed him. He kept his lips closed. “Josh, that’s not how to kiss.”
“My saliva,” he said, biting his lower lip. “It might carry the virus.”
“In negligible amounts, if at all,” I replied. “Let’s not let this thing run our lives.”
We kissed again, properly.
“Go to bed, Josh, and let your parents get some sleep.”
He pulled himself up from the floor and said, “You know what’s really going to drive them crazy, is when it sinks in that you’re not Jewish.”
I smiled, then, remembering, asked, “Josh, the night Jim tried to kill himself and you called me, you didn’t actually speak to me, did you?”
He shook his head. “No, I hung up before you answered. Why?”
“Because someone else called, too,” I said, “and I now know who it was.”
“Is it important?”
“Could be,” I replied. “Good night, Josh.”
“I love you,” he said, and slipped quietly from the room. I watched the last embers spark and burn themselves out. When I finally arranged myself on the couch, my last conscious thought was not of Josh but of Jim Pears.