Michael Nava - Goldenboy

Her eyes focused on me. Without a word, she picked up the phone and pressed two numbers. There was a quick, sotto voce conversation and when she put the phone down she said, “He asked for you to wait for him in the bar.”

“Fine. By the way, is Andrea Lew working today?”

The girl said, “She quit.”

“Do you know how I can reach her?”

“No,” she said in a tone she probably practiced on her boyfriend.

“Thanks for your help,” I replied, and felt her eyes on my back as I made my way to the bar. I found an empty bar stool and ordered a Calistoga water. Andrea Lew was right; it was impossible for anyone to enter the restaurant without being seen from the bar. Assuming, of course, that someone was watching.

I was about to ask the bartender about Andrea when I heard someone say, “Mr. Rios?”

I looked up at the dark-haired boy who had spoken. “You’re Josh,” I said, recognizing him from court.

He nodded. In court he had seemed older. Now I saw he was very young, two or three years out of his teens, and trying to conceal the fact. The round horn-rimmed glasses didn’t help. They only called attention to green-brown eyes that had the bright sheen of true innocence. His hair was a mass of black curls restrained by a shiny mousse. He had a delicate, bony face, a long nose, a wide strong mouth and the smooth skin of a child. “Why don’t we go down to my office,” he said, and I was suddenly aware that we had been staring at each other.

“You mind showing me around the place first?” I asked, stepping down from the bar stool. I was about an inch taller than he.

He frowned but nodded. “You’ve already seen all this,” he said, jutting his chin at the dining room. “I’ll show you the back.”

We made our way across the big room and pushed through swinging double doors.

“This is the waiter’s station,” he told me. We were in a narrow room. The kitchen was visible over a counter through a rectangular window on which the cooks placed orders as they were ready and clanged a bell to alert the waiters. In one comer was a metal rack with four plastic tubs filled with dirty dishes. A busboy took the top tub and carried it out through another door behind us. Pots of coffee bubbled on the counter. Cupboards held coffee cups, glasses, napkins, and cutlery. One of the blond waiters walked in, lit a cigarette and smoked furiously.

“Put it out, Timmy,” Josh said as we passed through the door where the busboy had gone and stood at the top of a corridor that terminated at the back door. Josh walked toward it. I followed.

“Dishwasher,” he said, stopping in front of a small room where a slender black man wearing a hair net pushed a rack of dishes into an immense machine.

We walked back a little farther. “Employees’ locker room,” Josh said. There were three rows of lockers against a wall. Opposite the lockers were two doors, marked men and women. A bench completed the decor. “This is where we change for work,” he said.

We went back into the corridor.

“Back door,” he said, pointing.

I looked at the door and realized, for the first time, that the lock which Andrea Lew had talked about was an interior lock. Inspecting it further I saw that it could not be unlocked from outside at all but only from within. I asked Josh about it.

“It’s for security,” he replied. “It can’t be picked from outside.”

“You keep it unlocked during the day?”

“Uh-huh, for deliveries. Night manager locks it up when the kitchen closes at ten.”

“So if anyone was back here after ten he’d need a key to get out?”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“But there’s a key at the bar.”

He looked at me and blinked. “Yeah, for emergencies.”

“Show me the cellar,” I said.

I followed him back down the corridor and around the front of the walk-in refrigerator. We passed briefly through the kitchen and then went down a rickety flight of stairs into the cellar. We stood in a big, dark room that had a damp, fruity smell. Behind locked wooden screens were hundreds of bottles of wine. The room was otherwise bare. He showed me two smaller rooms adjacent to each other. The door to one of them was open, revealing a cluttered desk. The door to the other was closed.

“That’s where they found Jim,” he said. “You want to go in?” His voice indicated clearly that he didn’t.

“Maybe later,” I said, giving him a break.

We went into his office. He sat in a battered swivel chair behind a desk made of a thick slab of glass supported by metal sawhorses. There was a phone on the wall, its lights flashing.

He closed a ledger on the desk before him and offered me a cup of coffee. I declined.

“How’s Jim?” he asked.

‘‘Surviving.’’

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” he said, defensively. “They told me I had to testify.”

“Of course you did,” I said soothingly. “You seem pretty young to be managing this place.”

“I’m twenty-two,” he protested, and must have caught my smile. “I usually just manage the floor but Mark — he’s the head guy — he’s out sick today.”

“Have you worked here long?”

“Six years. I started as a busboy.”

“You go to school?”

He picked up a paper clip. “Two years at UCLA. I dropped out.”

“Why?”

He flattened out the paper clip. “Is that important?”

“I won’t know until you tell me.”

He set the paper clip aside. “I didn’t know what I was doing there,” he said. “I never was much for school.”

I accepted this, for the moment. “What was Jim like to work with?”

He was visibly relieved by the change of subject. “He was a hard worker,” Josh said. “Reliable.”

“You ever see him outside of work?”

He shook his head and picked up a pencil.

“Were you surprised to find out he was gay?”

Our eyes caught. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t Brian tell you Jim was gay?”

“Yes.”

“Did you believe him?”

He put the pencil down. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He looked at the desk. “I don’t know. I just did.”

I let his answer hang in the air. He picked up the paper clip again.

“And later you heard Brian threaten to tell Jim’s parents.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” he said, softly.

“No?”

“It was more — like a joke,” he said, raising his head slowly. “Brian said something like, ‘You want your mama to know you suck cock?’ like the way little kids insult each other.”

“And Jim? Did he know it was a joke?”

“I think so,” he replied. “He kind of laughed and said, ‘I’ll kill you first.”‘

“Where did this happen?”

“The locker room. We were all changing for work.”

“This was the only time you ever heard them say anything to each other like this?”

“Yes,” he said, and bit his lower lip.

“You know, Josh,” I said, “this sounds entirely different than it did when you testified at the prelim.”

“I told the prosecutor but he kept saying that Jim really meant it because, you know, he did kill Brian. I guess he convinced me.”

“Do you think Jim killed Brian?” I asked.

“That’s what they say. All the evidence looks pretty bad for Jim.”

“Do you think he did it?” I asked again.

Josh took off his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. “I don’t know,” he said, finally.

“Can you think of anyone else who would have a reason to kill Brian Fox?”

He shook his head quickly.

“Where were you the night he was killed?”

He looked shocked. “On a date.”

I looked at him until he looked away. He was lying. “Who with?”