Michael Nava - The Little Death

“It’s not speculation. I have proof.”

“Mr. Rios, give the old man a break. He doesn’t need to hear that members of his family killed each other off. Take your story back to the police or, better yet, keep it to yourself.”

Switching to a different tack I asked, “Who arranged for the lease of Hugh’s house from Pegasus?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hugh leased his house from Pegasus. Who was his contact there?”

“Pegasus isn’t in the real estate business.”

“I saw the lease.”

There was silence on the other end. At last he said, “Can’t be. Look, Henry, I really must go.”

“Have we ever met?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, sounding, I thought, nervous.

“I know your voice.”

“Well, maybe we’ve met through Grant. Goodbye, Henry.”

The line went dead.

A moment later I was back on the phone to Grant asking him what Peter Barron looked like.

“I’ve only seen him a few times. He’s about our age. Blond. Handsome. Gay.”

Blond, good-looking — that’s how Aaron’s neighbor described the man he saw in Aaron’s yard the night of the murder. Was that also the man I saw? I closed my eyes, but I was unable to picture the face. Still, his hair — it was blond, wasn’t it? And I knew I had seen him somewhere before.

“Gay?” I asked Grant. This, too, seemed significant.

“I’ve run into him at Sutter’s Mill,” he said, naming a bar popular with professionals. “Did he say something to you?”

“No, nothing like that. Is there any chance I might’ve met him through you?”

“I hadn’t seen you in four years until two weeks ago,” Grant said. “Hardly enough time to introduce you to my friends, much less a cocktail party acquaintance. Do you know Peter Barron?” “I’m sure of it, but I can’t figure out where. He knows we’ve met, too. He lied to me about that and about Hugh’s relation to Pegasus. I think I’d better drive up to the city. Where is Pegasus?”

Grant gave me an address on Montgomery Street.

“I’ll call you,” I said and hung up.?

Pegasus Corporation was housed on floors thirty-eight, thirtynine and forty of a Japanese bank building near the Embarcadero freeway. I called up to Barron’s office from the street to make sure he was in, then I entered the building. It was close to noon and I explained to the security guard that I was meeting someone for a lunchtime conference but had misplaced his office number. I gave the guard Peter Barron’s name and he made a call.

“He’s on thirty-nine, sir,” the guard said. “Take one of the elevators to your right.”

On the thirty-ninth floor I played a variation of the same trick with the receptionist, a stern-looking young Chinese woman who sat at a desk beneath a large brass engraving of Pegasus in flight.

“Hello. Do you know if Mr. Barron’s gone out to lunch yet?”

She glanced at a sheet of paper. “No,” she said, reaching for the phone. “You have an appointment?”

“Wait,” I said, briefly laying my hand over hers as she touched the phone. “Peter and I roomed together in college ten years ago and I haven’t seen him since. I’m in town for the week and wanted to surprise him. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Do you know when he goes out to lunch?”

“Any minute now. You can wait here.”

“Okay, but — well, when I saw Peter he still had hair to his shoulders and was as skinny as a pole. I’m not sure I’d recognize him.”

She nodded again as gravely as if I were administering a quiz. Or maybe it was my antiquity that intimidated her. Her own college years could hardly be more than a few months behind her.

“Can you describe him to me?” I asked.

She looked at the wall behind me, thinking. “He’s about six feet,” she began hesitantly, “blond hair and blue eyes. Nice build.” She giggled. “Very handsome.”

Her description added nothing to what Grant had already told me and it fit about ten thousand men in the financial district alone.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll sit here with a magazine pulled up over my face and wait for Peter. You just carry on with your job. All right?”

“All right,” she said and answered a call.

I looked at my watch. It was twelve-five. Six minutes later, behind a flock of secretaries, a blond man stepped into the room from a door beside the receptionist’s desk. I recognized him at once. He informed the receptionist that he would be out for the rest of the day.

She replied loudly, “Thank you, Mr. Barron.”

He started walking out into the corridor. I put my magazine down and fell into step beside him.

“Hello, Peter.”

He glanced at me and stopped. “Henry. I was just going to pay you a visit.”

He spoke in the same soft reasonable tone of voice with which he had addressed me only three weeks earlier, the night he and his three friends abducted me as I was leaving Grant Hancock’s apartment and shot me up with sodium pentothal. Peter was the one who wielded the needle and told me he wanted information for his employer, who I had then thought was Robert Paris.

“You work for Smith,” I said.

“You’re surprised?”

“It doesn’t make sense to me, especially if you also killed Aaron Gold.”

“Killed who?”

“You killed Hugh Paris and you killed Aaron Gold.”

“Henry,” he said with a small, hurt smile. “I have never killed anyone and as for our last meeting, you might at least give me a chance to explain.”

“One doesn’t explain away two murders.”

He sighed impatiently, “Damn it, Henry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All right, Hugh was murdered, but not by me. This other guy I’ve never even heard of.”

My curiosity overcame me. “Then who killed Hugh?”

He shook his head. “We — Mr. Smith and I — have been trying to find out. I don’t know. That’s why I — what did you call it

— abducted you — that night.”

I looked at him. We were standing in the corridor while people rushed around us. He seemed calm and rational for someone just accused of two murders. I, by contrast, was beginning to sound hysterical even to myself. And he worked for Smith. Smith, in my scheme of things, was a good guy.

Perhaps sensing my uncertainty he said, “There’s a lot I have to tell you about Hugh’s death, Henry, and you have the most urgent right to know. You were his lover.”

“How did you know that?” I demanded.

“We’ve been working the same field. You know about me. I know about you.” He reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m gay, too, Henry. I understand.”

I didn’t want to believe him but no one, not even Grant, had acknowledged my right to grieve. The weight of Hugh’s death and the frustration I felt at not knowing who killed him all closed in on me. I brushed aside a tear. Barron tactfully looked away.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

We walked to an elevator and stepped inside.

“What exactly do you do for Smith?” I asked.

He reached his hand into his jacket, pulling out a gun.

“Special assignments,” he replied. “Now, we’re going down to the garage, and then we’ll get off, you first with me following. You behave yourself, Henry, and maybe I’ll let you live.”

I looked into his eyes, felt his breath on my face. He smiled and then stepped behind me, against the wall of the elevator.

“You’re crazy,” I said. “You killed Hugh and Aaron Gold.”

“An interesting thought,” he said. “But why would I’ve done that? Who was I working for?”

“Maybe no one,” I replied. “You might just be a freelance psychopath.”