“I see the decorator hasn’t been in yet,” I said, more edgily than I’d intended.
Grant shrugged. “When I get lonely for furniture I go to my father’s house. A glass of wine? Or do you want to stick to whiskey?”
“Wine,” I said. “I was drinking scotch with a lawyer.”
“A seemingly innocent pursuit,” he observed drily, pressing a glass into my hand. “You’re awfully thin, Henry. Still forgetting to eat?”
“As always. You look — very well, Grant.”
Aloud he said, “Thank you,” but he was thinking something else. Bad feelings have a life of their own.
I wanted desperately to say something that would wipe away the stain from our last, angry conversation four years earlier but for me that was all history. I had lost the scent of the emotions that led to the breakup. I had almost forgotten that I was the one who stopped returning calls. I could only think of how well he looked and how it was good to see him.
He sat on the floor, cross-legged. Candlelight blazed through his hair. Theatrical, I thought, but effective. I lowered myself to the floor until we were face to face. “I wanted to ask you about Hugh,” I began, tentatively.
“Yes, of course.”
“What did you know about him?”
He shrugged. “The Paris family is peninsula and seldom ventures up to the city. I didn’t really know Hugh until we were undergrads at Yale. He was younger than I by a couple of years and I took him under my wing.” He looked into his wine glass. “I was in love with him,” he added simply.
“What happened?”
“Hugh was eighteen and not out of the closet. Neither was I, for that matter. He was tactful enough to overlook my infatuation. We behaved toward each other,” he said, suddenly bitter, “like perfect young gentlemen. And at night I lay in bed praying to God to make me different or kill me or, preferable to either, put Hugh beside me.”
“You never told me any of this.”
“It was ancient history by the time I met you and, besides, I hadn’t seen or heard from Hugh in years. Not until about six months ago when I ran into him on the streets. He saw me and tried to slip by but I stopped him. He wasn’t particularly friendly but he agreed to have a drink with me that night.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, and he spent the night here.” A twinge of jealousy constricted my chest for a second. “It was nothing like I’d imagined it would be when I was nineteen,” Grant added. “It wasn’t memorable and yet-” he poured wine into his glass from the bottle beside him — “I’ve thought of him almost every day since then. He’s one of those people who live less in your memory than your imagination. Like a symbol.”
“Of what?” I asked.
“I suppose it’s different for everyone who knew him,” Grant replied. “For me, he was a symbol of being young and unknowing.”
“I’ve never thought that was an enviable state.”
“No? Then maybe life has spared you some of the things I know about.”
“I don’t think I’ve been spared much of life’s nastiness,” I said, “but I don’t take it personally. And as for Hugh, I preferred the flesh-and-blood human to the symbol. Tell me, what do you know about the judge?”
“What does anyone know about Robert Paris? The poor boy who made good by marrying into the right family. My father thinks he’s the ultimate nouveau riche, but no one denies that he’s a brilliant and ruthless man. Of course, that was before the stroke. Now I hear he’s half-dead but he hasn’t actually been seen in town for months.”
“What stroke?”
“He had a series of strokes about a year ago. Since then, he’s stayed up on the Linden estate in Portola Valley. He sees no one, and no one sees him.”
“What about a man named John Smith?” I asked.
“Are we going to explore every branch of the Linden family tree?” Grant asked mockingly.
“Hugh saw him the day he was killed.”
“Well, he is Hugh’s great-uncle,” Grant replied. “So surely there’s nothing unusual about Hugh having seen him.”
“I don’t know. Is there? What kind of man is John Smith?”
“He’s a stuffy old zillionaire,” Grant said, “nominally a banker but only in the sense that he owns banks. He’s Robert Paris’s brother-in-law and controls the other half of the Linden fortune. He and the judge don’t get along.”
“Really? Do you know that as a fact?”
“Good Lord, Henry, half of the city knows that as a fact.”
“Then he’s someone Hugh might have gone to for help.”
“Help for what?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to talk to him though.”
“It’s easier to see the Pope,” Grant said, “and probably more fun.”
“What do you mean?”
“Smith is a recluse. You’d never get past the palace guard.”
“Could you?”
“I’d have to know why I’m trying.”
“I think Robert Paris had Hugh murdered.”
Grant sipped his wine. “You’re crazy,” he remarked cheerfully. “Smith would throw you out the minute you uttered those words.” Grant shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”
He finished his wine and set the glass down on the floor.
“I’m perfectly serious, Grant.”
“That’s your forte,” he said, “but even so you don’t go to someone like John Smith to accuse a member of his family of homicide. That’s what the police are for.”
“They’re not interested.”
“Then perhaps you should take your cue from them,” he said, rising. “I’m going out to get some dinner. Want to join me?”
“I can’t tonight, but I’ll take a rain check.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
Rising to leave I said, “It was good to see you again, Grant.”
A smile, at once cynical and tender, flickered across his lips. “What amazes me most about you,” he said, “is your sincerity.”
“I’m afraid that it’s my only social skill.”
“Good night, Henry,” he said, letting me out.
I stepped out of Grant’s building, passing the doorman who acknowledged my departure with the slightest of nods. I had parked down by the piers on Embarcadero and had walked, first to Abrams’ office and then to see Grant. Now as I returned to my car, walking beneath the freeway, the streets around Embarcadero Plaza were deserted. It was only the racket from the freeway and the lumbering noise of the buses as they screeched to a halt at the nearby bus yard that gave an illusion of activity.
It was the road noise that kept me from making out my name the first time it was shouted by a voice behind me. The second time I heard it distinctly, stopped, and turned around. A man, my height but considerably more muscular, hurried toward me. He wore tight levis and a leather bomber jacket over a white t-shirt. As he stepped beneath a streetlight, I saw he was carrying something in his right hand. A gun. Aimed at my stomach.
“Henry,” he said in a friendly voice, “I’ve been shouting at you for the last block.” His dark hair was cut short and he wore a carefully clipped moustache. He was good-looking in an anonymous sort of way. A Castro clone.
“I don’t think I know you,” I said.
“Well, we’re going to be good friends before the night is over.”
He kept the gun on me while he raised his left hand in the air and motioned toward us. A moment later a car — black, Japanese, four-door, with its lights out and no license plate — crept up beside us. Two other men were in the front seat and one in the back. The two in the front and my friend with the gun were not only dressed identically but, as far as I could see, might have been a set of triplets. The man in the back seat differed from the others only in that he was a blond. He stepped out of the car and approached us.
“Hello, Henry. Just relax and do what you’re told and everything will be fine.”
“Sure,” I said, as the car came up directly behind me.
The blond reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black bandana, of the kind allegedly used by some gay men to indicate their sexual specialties. I didn’t think that he was signaling me for a date. Smiling, he brought the bandana over my eyes and tied it at the back of my head.