The man himself was in his late thirties, short, dark, and cynical. The cynicism showed in his eyes, the set of his mouth, his voice. It wasn’t the result of his beating; it had been a part of him for a long time, maybe ever since he’d found out that he was different from the so-called norm, an outsider and an object of lesser men’s hate and scorn. His left forearm was in a cast; fading bruises discolored the left side of his face, and there was a bandage over some kind of wound on the right cheekbone. He moved slowly, stiffly-testimony to other bruises, other wounds, beneath the silk robe and pajamas he wore.
“Sorry I’m not dressed,” he said when he let Runyon in. “Still hurts like hell when I try to put on my pants.”
“No apology necessary.”
“One of them kicked me in the ass. I’ve got a bruise on my left buttock the size of a cantaloupe.”
“Must be painful.”
“Only when I sit down. I’m going to stand, if you don’t mind, but you go ahead and have a seat.”
Runyon said he’d stand too. While he was declining the offer of a drink, a fluff ball white cat appeared from behind one of the antiques and came over to sniff at his shoes.
“That’s Snow White,” Zalesky said. There was pride in his voice, as if he were introducing a relative. “Pure-blood Angora. You like cats?”
“Yes.” Colleen had owned a cat when he met her. Pure black alley cat named Midnight. Lived with them for the first eight years they were married, and she’d cried for three days when it died.
The Angora decided it had had enough of him and his shoes and drifted away. Zalesky made clucking noises; it ignored him, too. “Independent little bastard,” he said affectionately. Then he said, “So you’re Joshua Fleming’s father. I don’t remember him mentioning you until his call a few minutes ago.”
“We’re estranged,” Runyon said.
“Oh. I see.”
“Not for the reason you might think. His mother and I were divorced when he was a baby. She blamed me. So does he.”
“With just cause?”
“I don’t think so, but he won’t listen to my side of it.”
“Young and stubborn. I was like that myself, once, for different reasons. I learned to be more tolerant of my folks as I got older. Maybe he will, too.”
“What I’m hoping.”
“Is that why you’re doing this? Investigating these bashings?”
“Partly. He contacted me, opened a closed door that I’d like to keep open.”
“What other reason?”
“He’s hurting, he needs my help. That’s one.”
“There’s another?”
“I’ve been in law enforcement most of my adult life,” Runyon said. “I don’t like to see innocent people hurt and I damn well hate the ones who do the hurting. This pair that beat you up, put Joshua’s roommate in critical condition… if they’re not stopped, they’re liable to kill somebody. I don’t want that to happen.”
Zalesky said, “Commendable,” and seemed to mean it. “I wish more cops felt that way.”
“So do I.”
“I’ll do anything I can to help, of course, but you already know that. What is it you’d like to know?”
“To begin with, where were you attacked?”
“Just up the street from here, on the park side. I’d just come home from visiting a friend, just parked my car and gotten out.”
“What time?”
“After one A.M. Close to one-thirty.”
“They followed you?”
“No. They were parked a couple of spaces away, across from my house.”
“As if they were waiting for you?”
“It seemed that way.”
“But they were strangers?”
“Oh, yes,” Zalesky said. “Definitely. I suppose they spotted me somewhere, some other time, and followed me then. One of those random things. It’s quiet up here late at night, I must’ve seemed like a good target. I don’t know. With men like that… who the hell knows?”
“They were in a pickup truck?”
“Yes. Black or dark blue, I’m not sure which.”
“Could you identify the make and model?”
“I don’t know anything about cars, much less pickups.”
“Did it seem new or old?”
“More old than new.”
“Anything distinctive about it that you can remember?”
“Distinctive…” Zalesky’s brow furrowed, smoothed again. “Well, there was a Confederate flag in the back window. I noticed that when they came out at me.”
“A real flag or some kind of decal?”
“I think it was real. My God, you don’t suppose they could be Klan members? In San Francisco, of all places in this country?”
“Anything’s possible,” Runyon said. “So they came out and then what? Just attacked you, or did they say anything first?”
“Oh, they had a lot to say. The usual run of gay insults. One of them called me sweet thing… Christ. The other one said something ridiculous about teaching me not to mess with boys and then they started hitting me.”
“They use weapons of any kind?”
“One of them had a pipe or club made out of metal. Aluminum, I think.” Zalesky shuddered. “I can still hear the sound it made when he hit me with it.”
“Little League baseball bat?”
“I suppose it could’ve been. The other one hit me with his fists, kept kicking me when I was on the sidewalk. They were both laughing. The whole time… laughing, as if they were really having a fun time.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“Not much. It was dark and I couldn’t see their faces clearly. One of them wore a jacket with a hood and the other a cap.”
“What kind of cap?”
“I’m not sure… it might’ve been a baseball cap.”
“Was he the one with the aluminum club?”
“… Yes, I think so.”
“How old were they?”
“Early twenties, maybe twenty-five.”
“Big?”
“The one in the jacket was. Over six feet and… what’s the word I want? Not fat, but… burly, chunky. Pale skin, at least it seemed pale in the dark. He may have red hair.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Freckles,” Zalesky said. “On his forehead and cheeks.”
“You’re sure they were freckles, not blemishes?”
“Freckles, yes. And I remember a lock of hair hanging out from under his cap. Light-colored, but not blond… it didn’t look blond to me.”
Runyon said, “Good. That helps. What about the other one?”
“Tallish, slender. Average-looking. That’s all I remember about him.”
The white cat reappeared and began to wind itself around Zalesky’s legs, purring, making little burbling noises in its throat. Zalesky said, “What’s the matter, baby? You need a little love?” He bent, slowly and with evident pain, and scooped the cat up with his good hand and hugged it against his chest. The purring got louder. And louder still when Zalesky buried his face in the animal’s thick fur.
Private moment; Runyon looked away. The cat wasn’t the only one who needed a little love right now.
He was looking at the wall tapestry, trying to make out what the scene depicted on it was all about, when Zalesky put an abrupt end to the private moment. “I keep having the feeling I’ve seen him someplace before.”
“Who?”
“The tall, slender one.”
“Before that night? Where?”
“That’s just it, I can’t quite recall.”
“Someplace around here, this neighborhood?”
“No.”
“Near where you work?”
“The Transamerica Pyramid… no, not there.”
“Try it this way,” Runyon said. “Day or night?”
“I’m not… Night. It might’ve been at night.”
“Where do you go nights? Public places, I mean.”
“That’s not an easy question to answer. I go out frequently. Concerts, plays, the cinema. Dinner with friends. The Castro scene, too, of course-bars, clubs. I’m not really into cruising, but now and then… well, never mind, you’re not interested in that.”