His face came up with a hard quizzical look. "Then what were you doing with him?"
"Nothing. Until Wednesday evening, when I discovered his body in my car at Faxon Towing and Storage, I hadn't seen Jack since the Fourth of July.
When I first saw his body I didn't even realize who he was. Was sexual jealousy the reason you and Jack split up?"
He sighed, shook his head, and looked perplexed but a little less tense. He swigged down more beer, which he was taking in a little faster than he might have. "No, that wasn't the problem," he said. "That's just an idea I came up with at the time. It was an explanation that made sense."
"Explanation for what?"
"Jack's behavior. His brooding, his quitting school, his shutting me out.
This is getting crazier and crazier. You don't know anything about this, do you? You really don't."
"Not much, no. I have my own reasons for gathering the facts about Jack's final months, some obvious, some not. You thought maybe there was another man who was affecting Jack's life?"
He took another drink and slung a shapely thigh over the arm of his chair.
"Jack was so irritable and hard to get along with. Naturally I thought it was guilt. I arrived at that naive conclusion because in my other past relationships-the few brief ones I'd had-that's the way I acted when I was feeling guilty about something. Men, usually. Except, Jack swore there were no other men. He said his sex life with me was everything any man could possibly ever desire."
He spoke these words as though they comprised a mere point of information. I said, "Uh-huh."
"And then I–I shouldn't have brought it up, but I asked him if he was dealing drugs again. I suppose you know, he used to."
"I know."
"Jack went right through the roof when I mentioned drugs, because he'd promised me when we moved in together that he wouldn't do that, and Jack's word was important to him. I think I can say that Jack valued honesty above all else. It's probably because of his grandfather's shady past, but he had what I would consider an almost neurotic need to be open and direct about the most important things in his life. And when I asked about drugs-and all I did was ask — Jack was terribly, terribly hurt."
"And he explicitly denied it?"
"Oh, he denied it, all right. You know, I've built a career, I've worked hard for what I accomplished, and I value that. Work isn't everything-I think that's one of the valuable lessons I learned from Jack. No man on his deathbed ever said, 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office.' Jack had broader values and that's one of the things that attracted me to him, the way he could put our life together in a larger perspective. I even went to a gay-lib type of meeting with him one time. But the thing was, I just couldn't afford to become connected in any way with illegal drug activity. So, stupidly I asked Jack about the drugs. I should have known better. I knew Jack's word was good, and I shouldn't have asked. But I did."
Slonski sat there squirming in his regret. He had made a mistake of a not uncommon type in human relations and now the hurt was deepened because he knew he would never be able to undo it. I said, "And that's when you and Jack broke up?"
"It was the beginning of the end. That was midsummer, and Jack stayed with me until mid-October-October sixteenth, to be precise. But he was moody and difficult all summer and fall, and he refused to tell me what the real problem was. He said I was too conventional-too 'straight arrow' was how he put it-to understand. And that hurt me."
"In some circles it's a dreadful thing to accuse a person of. Anyway, if Jack prized openness and honesty as much as you say, he must have been feeling guilty himself for not confiding in you, not trusting you, and that would have accounted in part for his rotten state of mind. Maybe his conscience was bothered by the thing itself-whatever it was he was involved in."
He sipped at the beer and thought this over. "I doubt it. Jack had his own moral code. He was arrogant that way. He could break the law with no compunction if he thought the law was wrong. He was a child of the sixties in that respect. I stayed out of Vietnam by getting an essential job in a defense industry while Jack was out in the streets burning his draft card.
That's how he could rationalize the drug dealing he'd done. He said as long as you didn't sell it to the kids, it was just another popular consumer item you were providing."
"Right. Like alcohol-which killed his father and must have made Jack's young life miserable."
"That's what I said," he said, and set the beer mug on the floor. "But Jack just said any habit could be abused, and then refused to discuss it any further. He didn't like talking about his father. It was just too loaded a subject for him. Though I think he thought about his family a lot. They were always a strong presence in his mind and could set off some powerful feelings."
"Right. Family has always been important to the Lenihans."
"When I look back to last summer and fall, I keep thinking there must have been some point where I missed something, where something happened to Jack and I didn't recognize its importance. Or that I'd closed myself up, or been preoccupied with work. We'd had such a good thing going, and I just can't understand what I might have done to foul it up."
"Maybe nothing. Nothing at all."
"One of the characteristics that attracted me to Jack when we met was his ambition, the way he was working so hard to put some order in his life.
Enrolling in business school, planning for the future, putting his past behind him, even getting close to his family again. What happened that changed all that so suddenly? I've racked my brain, but I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what it might have been. Of course-it's all academic now. Even if somehow the misunderstanding could be cleared up-if that's what it was-Jack's not coming back. That's a fact I'm trying to face, and I'm having a very hard time with it."
"Had you thought he might come back?"
"Of course," he said with a little shrug. "No one had ever left me before. I've always been the one to do the leaving. I'm known as the irresistible Warren Slonski.' People call me that."
"What a nice compliment."
"So, the thing is, I wasn't used to a situation like that. Men are usually trying to get into my bed, not out of it."
I said, "Hell, I know exactly what you mean." If he'd looked suddenly queasy, I'd have shot him through the heart. But he didn't blanch, or laugh.
He just put his hands behind his head, gazed at the ceiling tragically, and flexed his biceps.
I said, "Maybe Jack's volatile reaction to your question about drug dealing was a result of his being confronted with the awful truth. Maybe he was back in the business and exploded out of guilt. Isn't that a possibility?"
He shook his head. "No. I knew Jack. He would have admitted it. I was wrong to suspect him and wrong to bring it up. It had to have been something else. I knew Jack."
"You mentioned that Jack was getting close to his family again. Was he seeing a lot of them?"
"For a while he was, and they all seemed to be hitting it off fairly well.
During the summer and into the fall Jack was even doing some work around the house for his grandfather in the North End. And he'd see his sister Corrine while he was out there. I went with him a couple of times and Corrine was nice to me, even though we had a hard time finding things to talk about. Her husband wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs though. 'Dreadful Ed,' Jack and I called him."
"Did you meet Jack's grandfather?"
"No, but I was curious about him. He's apparently some type of famous political figure in Albany-I'm from Water-town and don't know much about that. I know he was part of the Boyle brothers' machine here for fifty years, and it would have been fascinating to meet him. But Jack never offered and I didn't push it." He picked up his empty mug. "Say, how about a refill on the Beck's? It looks as if the well is about to run dry."