Ronald Tierney - Good To The Last Kiss - Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

While neither of them had to work, David chose public service whereas Teddy seemed to choose public spectacles.

Julia wasn’t comfortable. She wasn’t comfortable last night at the opera and she wasn’t comfortable here in the grand hotel. Sitting in its heavily chandeliered ballroom, a huge space filled with huge people – San Francisco’s finest, oldest and most unreachable families – she felt as if she were Daisy Mae on a polo pony.

What brought them all together was the 2000 Maldeaux Dinner, a HIV/AIDS benefit. The others joining Julia, David, Thaddeus and Helen, were a famous cosmetic surgeon and his wife, a notorious designer and his friend, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist and the columnist’s bored husband. Also at the table were a small intelligent looking man from Zurich and a novelist.

Robin Williams had just made an unsurprising guest-appearance and had gone. Pavarotti had spoken. Eloquently and humorously.

Julia used the passing of speakers to excuse herself. She felt suffocated. The new speaker, another one of the famous San Francisco names, a member of an immensely rich oil family not usually known for generosity, climbed upon the dais to discuss the importance of contributing to an organization trying to create housing for those with HIV and reminding the audience that recent medical advances shouldn’t mislead people into thinking there was nothing left to do.

‘I thought women always traveled in pairs,’ Thaddeus said, intercepting Julia’s journey.

She couldn’t help but stare back at the green eyes. His presence was nearly hypnotic. He moved close. His breath was on hers. ‘David speaks of you often,’ Thaddeus continued, ‘but I’m guessing you give him only a little more than the time of day.’

Even in the dim light, she could see his eyes dance. His words weren’t said to chastise, but meant as a spirited assault designed to both engage Julia and test her spirit.

‘Then he’s gotten a little more than you will,’ Julia said without breaking stride.

The low-growling Camaro with the smoked windows cruised Taylor, Jones, Turk and Eddy streets.

The driver knew he was doing something wrong. Very wrong. If he’d believed his mother – what she’d said during those religion-infused moments between alcoholic binges – he was not just wrong. He was not just bad. He was evil. He was ‘evil’ before he’d done anything. And so maybe she was right. He didn’t think about things that way. But if she was right and she didn’t know the half of it, he was the devil incarnate. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now.

The pink lights of the gay strip joint’s marquis and those of the liquor store reflected on the car’s new wax job. The car slowed, pulled to the curb. A girl, who was making her own corridor through a teetering crowd of winos stopped, went to the passenger window of the Camaro. She shook her head ‘no,’ started to back away, but changed her mind and moved again to the window. She giggled. Her casual indecision was an obvious act. She looked in the window one more time, then got in the car.

Brushing him off had little effect on Thaddeus who kept glancing Julia’s way, grinning.

‘I think he’s flirting with you,’ David said.

‘He’s your friend,’ Julia said. ‘Can’t you do something with him?’ She thought she’d be more impressed with the guests than she was. On the other hand, in spite of herself, she was very taken with Thaddeus.

‘Not Thaddeus. No one except Helen can do anything with him. And that’s because her fingers are curled around a fountain pen which in turn is poised above the signature line of her will.’

‘Constantly poised,’ Julia said.

‘Eternally poised, I suspect. Much to Teddy’s chagrin.’

‘Are you saying he wants her dead?’

‘Julia!’ Seidman said in mock shock. ‘Oh, I don’t know. He says he does, but I think he’s just trying to be fashionably cynical and dark. She gives him whatever he wants, but he must ask each and every time. He’s on a very short chain.’

‘I have trouble imagining you two being friends.’

David smiled. ‘Oh yes, I know. The dashing, swashbuckling Thaddeus Maldeaux and the old stick-in-the-mud David Seidman. Am I going to have to do something daring to win my lady’s affections?’

‘Maybe you already have. Looks as if you’ve just slain a fish of some sort,’ Julia said, nodding toward a plate carrying a bug-eyed, fan-tailed fish gently, almost surreptitiously landing in front of David.

‘Not exactly a dragon,’ David said.

‘We have to walk before we can run,’ Julia said.

‘He’s not really as arrogant as he appears.’

‘The fish?’

‘Amusing. Teddy isn’t really arrogant.’

‘What would you call it, then?’

‘Maybe an excess of confidence?’ David said, smiling.

‘I like that.’

‘My charms are more subtle than Teddy’s.’

She had been thinking the same thing, but also wondering if, at times, David’s charms weren’t a bit too subtle. ‘Teddy is a childish name.’ She glanced over the table. Thaddeus Maldeaux was looking at her. She couldn’t make out the expression. She wondered if he could hear. Surely not.

‘He is childish.’ David produced a phony smile and nodded toward Thaddeus.

‘Do we have to talk about him?’

‘Certainly not,’ David said. ‘The less the better. I’d rather talk about us.’ He put his hand on hers, kissed her ear.

‘David,’ she said softly, almost sadly.

‘I know.’

‘I know too. I don’t feel good about this part of it. I’m just uncertain about things and I really don’t like this feeling that I’m leading you on.’

‘You’re not. You’ve let me know where I stand. I’m leading me on. And I’ve been damn good at keeping me dangling. Why do you put up with me?’

‘Because I like you. I enjoy being with you. I’m comfortable with you.’

‘Mmmn hmmn. Comfortable. Like an old shoe.’

‘We’ve had this talk, David.’ Several times, she reminded herself. Was she leading him on? Was she being prudish? No, she didn’t want him as a lover. And at this point in her life, she didn’t want to have sex with someone unless it was a lover. Not out of prudery. She wasn’t a virgin. She just didn’t want to develop empty emotional baggage.

‘Yes, we have.’ He smiled, patted her hand and turned toward the conversation, dominated it seemed by the novelist. ‘I know,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You’ve been honest with me. Friends?’

‘Friends,’ she said, turning her attention back to the table.

‘The fact is if you are not in New York, you will not be taken seriously,’ the novelist said.

‘Time will determine who is a master of the craft,’ said the little man from Zurich.

‘You see, it’s driven by the Times ,’ the novelist said. ‘I don’t mean the times we live in, but the Times we read. The New York Times . They seat and depose.’

‘For now, perhaps. If it is fame you seek, then I understand.’

The novelist was quiet for a moment. ‘Quite frankly it’s readership. I want to be read.’

‘You are published. I’ve heard of you,’ the man from Zurich said.

‘If he gets the Times ’ blessing, he will sell more books and make more money and people will grovel at his feet,’ Thaddeus Maldeaux said.

‘Ah, groveling,’ the man from Zurich said. ‘That is something different altogether.’

The novelist tossed his napkin down in disgust and picked up his wineglass, doing what had to be difficult – sneering and drinking simultaneously.

‘Used to be just south of Market,’ the designer said. ‘Now, it’s everywhere.’