Michael Nava - Goldenboy

“It adds up.”

“So am I to infer that Jim didn’t kill Brian?” Larry asked, tapping ash into a crystal ashtray.

“No, the evidence is inescapable. It only explains why he can’t bring himself to admit it. He didn’t hate Brian.”

“Then why kill him?”

“It was still blackmail,” I said. “Brian had power over Jim. At some point Jim must have realized that Brian was using him and would go on using him whether Jim consented or not.”

“That must’ve been hard if he cared at all about Brian.”

“And it added to his guilt about being gay. Being gay meant being a victim.”

Larry put out the cigarette and rose from behind his desk. “What are you going to do?”

“Go back to Jim. Let him know that I know.”

“I suppose you have to,” Larry said, gathering his cigarettes. “You think I shouldn’t?”

Larry shrugged. “He hasn’t told you because he wanted to keep it a secret. Think of his pride.”

“That’s a luxury he can’t afford,” I replied.

Jim came out and sat at the table, focusing on my left ear. His face was slack and tired.

“Were you asleep?” I asked.

“Who can sleep around here,” he muttered.

“The tranquilizers don’t help?”

His shrug terminated that line of conversation.

“I wanted to talk to you about Brian.”

“Okay,” he said, indifferently.

The indifference stung. “You were lovers,” I said.

He gave me a hard look. “Guys don’t love each other,” he said.

“But you had sex with him.”

His face colored but he didn’t look away. “He wanted it,” he said slowly.

“Did you?”

His narrow fingers raked his hair.

“Was having sex with him the price Brian charged for not telling your parents about you?”

He nodded. He looked at me again, his childishness gone. “Brian always wanted to make it with me,” he said, knowingly. “He just needed a reason-”

“An excuse, you mean.”

“ — so he wouldn’t have to think he was a faggot.”

“How did you feel about being with him?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, out of the side of his mouth. “Sometimes he was a jerk about it. Sometimes it was — okay.”

“Did you like him?”

“Once when his parents were gone, we slept at his house,” Jim said. “That was really nice, in a bed and everything.” “Where did you usually meet Brian for sex?”

“His car,” Jim said. “The park. The locker room at the restaurant.”

“The wine cellar?”

His eyes showed fear.

“Was that why he was there that night?”

“I don’t know why he was there,” Jim said. His voice trembled.

“But you assumed that’s why he was there,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

After a moment’s hesitation he said, “Yeah.”

“Did Brian like you as much as you liked him?” I asked quietly.

He shook his head slowly, surprise in his face. “He never stopped calling me a faggot when other guys were around. Even after we made it. He told Josh Mandel about me.”

“And you still liked him?” I continued.

“He was different when we were alone,” Jim said, almost mournfully. He sounded less like the jilted lover than the slightly oddball child other children avoid; the mousy-haired boy lingering at the edge of the playing field watching a game he was never asked to play.

“So,” I said, in a matter-of-fact voice, “one part of you really liked him and another part of you hated him because he was using you, Jim. Isn’t that how it was?”

He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He nodded. “Part of you loved him-” I waited, but he didn’t react. “And part of you wanted-”

As if continuing a different conversation, he broke in, “Everything was so fucked up. I was tired.” I heard the exhaustion pouring out from a deep place. “I wanted to kill — “ “Brian,” I said.

“Myself,” he replied. “I wanted to kill myself. Not Brian. I didn’t kill Brian.”

“But Brian’s the one who’s dead, Jim.”

“No,” he said, his face closing. “You think I killed him, but I didn’t. I wanted to kill myself.”

“That’s what you wanted, Jim, but think about it,” I said, quickly. “Wanting to kill anyone means that there’s violence inside of you. You can’t always control that violence or direct it the way you planned. It’s like a fire, Jim.”

He was shaking his head violently, and his body trembled. “No, no, no,” he said. ‘‘It wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t.”

“Think back, Jim. Try to remember that night.”

“I don’t remember,” he said in a gust.

“You do remember,” I said. “You have to, Jim.”

His body buckled and then he started to scream. The guard ran up behind and restrained him, looking at me with amazement. As quickly as he had started, Jim stopped and slumped forward. Tears and snot ran down his face. He lifted his face and looked at me with such hatred that I felt my face burn.

“You’re like everyone else,” he said. “You want me to say I killed him. To hell with you.” To the guard he said, “Get me out of here.”

“We have to talk,” I said.

“No more talking. You’re not my lawyer anymore.”

He jerked up out of the chair. The guard looked at me, seeking direction.

“Okay, Jim. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I won’t be here,” Jim Pears said.

A phone was ringing.

I opened my eyes and tumbled out of bed, hurrying to pick the phone up before it woke Larry.

“Hello,” I said, shaking from the chill.

A drunken male voice slurred my name.

“Yes, this is Henry. Who is this?”

“I know who killed Brian whatshisname,” the voice continued.

I sat down at the desk. “Who are you?”

“It’s not important,” he said. “It wasn’t that Pears kid. I’ll tell you that much.”

I was trying to clear my head and decide whether this was a crank call. I still wasn’t sure.

“Were you at the bar that night?” I asked.

“Not me. Shit, you wouldn’t catch me dead in the valley,” he said and chuckled.

“Then how do you know?”

“I saw you on the news,” he said. “You’re kinda cute, Henry. You gotta lover?”

“Tell me about Brian Fox.”

I heard bar noises in the background and then the line went dead.

I put the phone down. If it was a crank call, the caller had gone to a lot of trouble to find me. He would have had to call my office up north to get Larry’s phone number. Unless he already had it. Josh Mandel? As I tried to reconstruct the voice, the phone rang again. I picked it up.

“Hello,” I said, quickly.

“Mr. Rios?” It was a different voice, also male but not drunk.

“Yeah. Who am I talking to?”

“This is Deputy Isbel down at county jail,” he said. “We got a bad situation here with Jim Pears.”

“What happened?”

“Seems like he overdosed.”

I stared at my faint reflection in the black window. “Is he dead?” I watched myself ask.

“No,” the deputy replied cautiously. “They took him down to county hospital. Thought you’d want to know.”

“Did you call his parents?”

“His dad answered,” the deputy said, grimly. “Thanked me and hung up before I could tell him where the boy was.”

“I see,” I replied. “Where’s the hospital if I’m coming from Silver Lake?”

I scrawled the directions on the back of an envelope and hung up. In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face, subdued my hair, rinsed my mouth, and dressed. I crept down the stairs. Just as I was closing the front door behind me, I heard the phone ring again. By the time I got to it, the caller had hung up.