Revision of Justice (18 page)

But first I wanted to find Anne-Judith Kernmeman, the grieving widow whose urgent phone calls Reza JaFari had failed to return, and who was now ignoring mine.

It was mid-August, the peak of the tourist season. Star maps were being hawked on dozens of curbsides from Hollywood to West L.A.

I purchased mine from a slim, good-looking Mexican kid with eyelashes long enough to make a drag queen jealous. He stood on a comer at the west end of the Sunset Strip, where Sunset Boulevard crosses the golden border into Beverly Hills and the neighborhood suddenly becomes palatial, with picture-perfect landscaping festooned with placards warning about armed patrol guards.

I idled the Mustang at the curb, scanned the map’s index, and found my luck was holding.

A home was listed for Michael Bolton, an address on Stone Canyon Road that sounded high up enough for the tennis courts and maid’s quarters to have million-dollar views. The location fit into the general description of the house he’d sold to the Kemmermans. For once, one of the city’s sillier newspaper features was proving useful to someone other than the celebrities and real estate agents who got free promotion from it.

I pulled back into the westward caravan of cars with the map folded to show the route through Bel-Air Estates. A few minutes later, I passed the imposing gates and colorful flower beds at the eastern Bel-Air entrance, then found Stone Canyon Road a minute or two after that, due north of UCLA.

As I wound my way into the cool shadows of lush foliage, it was like leaving one world for another. There were no modest houses here, only fine estates; everything was woodsy yet eminently tasteful, right down to the spotless stone driveways and gleaming door knockers made obsolete years ago by the security intercom systems erected at every gate.

As I got higher, the driveways didn’t lead to the homes but ascended, with a certain sweep and grandeur that kept the rest of us properly in our place. Banana palms were everywhere, along with towering ferns and flowering impatiens and climbing bougainvillea bursting with blossoms of red, orange, and yellow.

Los Angeles was by nature a desert; a serious drought could ruin a place like this. Yet I suspected that the drought warnings and water rationings experienced by Southern Californians from time to time didn’t apply to the monied class that dwelled in the rarified realm of Bel-Air. Like the gleaming, high-priced automobiles Bel-Air denizens always managed to drive in times of economic distress, their personal forests would somehow be watered and their swimming pools filled, while the rest of us took fewer showers, left our ordinary cars unwashed, and watched our unimportant little lawns die slow deaths.

I guess you could say I went looking for Anne-Judith Kemmerman with a chip on my shoulder.

The number I wanted was posted in brass on a pillar of brick, the used variety that rich people pay more for to add “character” to their homes. The pillar was one of twins mounted on either side of a wrought-iron gate high enough to keep out an Olympic pole vaulter. More wrought-iron fencing ran around the front of the property and up both sides, enclosing a two-story Spanish-style home replete with arches, verandas, and enough lawn for a nine-hole golf course.

I parked on the street, pressed the intercom button, and announced myself, asking to speak to Mrs. Kemmerman.

A male voice told me she wasn’t home.

I asked when she was expected back.

The voice told me he didn’t know.

I told the voice I would wait.

A female voice came through the speaker.

“This is Anne-Judith Kemmerman. I’m aware of the messages you’ve left. If I wished to talk to you, I would have called you back.”

“I only need a few minutes of your time, Mrs.Kemmerman. A few questions about Reza JaEari.”

“Don’t know him.”

“You knew him as Raymond Farr.”

“Never heard of him.”

The voice was bold and vibrant, without a trace of widow’s grief.

“You left messages on his answering machine, Mrs. Kemmerman. You were seen dining with him at Jimmy’s. Rather intimately.”

The few moments of silence that followed were interrupted by ear-splitting anger.

“I have nothing to say to you, scumbag. Get lost!”

“I’ll be right here until you’re ready to talk, Mrs. Kemmerman.”

I settled my butt on the trunk of the Mustang where the security camera could see me, crossed my arms, and whistled an uptempo version of “My Funny Valentine.”

A minute later, a man strode down the long driveway and the big gate opened between us.

He was on the short side of thirty, clad only in a hot orange Speedo and rubber sandals. He was about my size, except he’d worked hard at pumping up his muscles while I’d worked hard at letting mine go soft. His handsome brunette head sported a close, expensive cut, and a web of tight, dark hair spread out with a fine symmetry across the contours of his gym-cut chest.

I took my butt off the car and stepped to the sidewalk to meet him. He didn’t stop walking until his nose was inches from mine.

“Mrs. Kemmerman told you to get lost.”

I stepped back and looked him up and down. I noticed that there wasn’t an awful lot filling the front pouch of his Speedo.

“I don’t take orders from Mrs. Kemmerman. Or from the boy toys who work for her.”

“You’ve got one more chance to leave the easy way, pal.”

“I believe I’m standing on a public sidewalk.”

I’d used the line before. It never did much good, at least not with airheads like this one, who correlated masculinity with the size of their biceps.

He pushed me hard enough to back me up a few steps.

“Now you’re standing in the street. So what?”

I glanced down for another appraisal of his pint-sized basket.

“Tell me something, Muscles. Do bodybuilders like you work so hard at pumping up to compensate for certain shortcomings?”

“You’re this close to feeling some pain, pal.”

I looked over the rest of him.

“You’d be perfect for an
International Male
catalog, if it weren’t for-well, you know…”

Everything tensed above his waist, causing his hairy pecs to swell.

“Of course,” I added helpfully, “you could always stuff it with a sock.”

He swung with his right fist. I blocked the punch by seizing his wrist, then leaned my hip into him while cinching my right arm around his neck. His weight was coming forward, which helped. I flipped him across my hip and lower back and slammed him ungently to the pavement. We’d called the move a Japanese hip roll in my college wrestling days. I’d never been particularly good at it, but it was adequate for taking down a muscle bunny whose athletic skills were limited to lifting barbells.

He got in a couple of punches that found my face, but the wind was knocked out of him and he was confused. I flipped him facedown, mounted him to tie up his legs and arms, and smacked him on the back of the head a few times to get his attention. His taut buttocks squirmed beneath me in the scanty Speedo, an unexpected gesture of romance I found quaintly touching.

I leaned down and kissed him on the ear.

“Had enough, sweetheart?”

“I’ll kill you, fuck face!”

“You Rambo types drive me wild.”

I placed my palm on the back of his head and ground his face into the street until I saw blood on the pavement. His mouth, especially, was a mess. I suspected Mrs. Kemmerman wouldn’t be pleased.

“One more time, pretty boy. Enough?”

“OK, OK, enough.”

I eased up on him just as a horn blasted behind us.

Over my shoulder I saw the former Anne-Judith Carlton behind the wheel of a new Ferrari convertible, with the sticker still on the windshield. She had big, flaming hair and enough gold jewelry around her neck, wrists, and fingers to fill half the teeth in Beverly Hills. Her breasts, more than ample in the photograph taken a decade earlier on the set of
Full Contact
, had grown to even more voluptuous proportions, no doubt through the wonders of modern technology.

I raised myself off her boyfriend and faced her through the windshield.

“We’ll have to stop meeting like this, Mrs. Kemmerman.”

Muscles got to his feet, hanging his head a little.

“He got me by surprise, A.J.”

“Get in the house!”

He glanced at me, attempting to look surly.

“Next time, you won’t be so lucky.”

“Next time, I might not be so sweet.”

“In the house,” Mrs. Kemmerman repeated. “Take care of your face, for God’s sake.”

She sounded like a woman who might appreciate a small endowment on a man, something to humiliate him with when she felt the need. Muscles trudged away up the driveway, tipping his head back and holding a hand to his bloody face.

“I’m Benjamin Justice, Mrs. Kemmerman. I’m on assignment for
Angel City
magazine. Wrestling is just a hobby.”

“I know who you are. I had you checked out. You’re that reporter who made up some story about AIDS a few years back at the
Times
. Won a goddamned Pulitzer until you got caught and had to ship it back.”

“That’s me, all right.”

“You work in a cesspool profession and still manage to make all the other turds smell like chocolate kisses.”

“You have quite a way with words, Mrs. Kemmerman.”

“Keep your ass away from me or I’ll hire somebody for protection who knows how to get the job done.”

I glanced at the car. I didn’t know much about fancy cars anymore, but I figured a new Ferrari had to run in the six figures.

“Nice transportation, Mrs. Kemmerman. Did you pick it out before or after the funeral?”

Her tires squealed and the Ferrari came straight at me. The wheels turned at the last moment and the bumper missed my knees by inches.

I watched Anne-Judith Kemmerman disappear down Stone Canyon Road, raising one hand with the middle finger extended, her jewelry flashing like a victory trophy in the westerly sunlight.

“The table looks better every time I see it.”

Danny Romero looked up from the garage floor, where he knelt with a soft cloth, rubbing Danish oil into the dark wood.

“It’s pretty much done.” He ran a hand over one of the corners, checking the joints. “I always have trouble admitting that a piece is finished—I guess I want to hang on to it as long as I can.”

Maggie trotted over to be scratched and I obliged. Danny rose slowly, wincing, using the table for support.

“Need some help?”

He shook his head. As he came closer, he scanned my bruised face. I felt the light touch of his fingers on a tender section of my chin.

“What happened to you?”

“I ran into a fist.”

“Where?”

“Up in Bel-Air, at Anne-Judith Kemmerman’s place—the woman who kept calling Reza. She encouraged me not to hang around.”

He grinned.

“She’s pretty tough.”

I laughed.

“It was her boyfriend who did the damage. But, yeah, she is pretty tough.”

“How does her bodyguard look?”

“Worse.”

“Did she tell you anything that can help us?”

“She wasn’t in a loquacious mood.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“She told me to fuck off.”

“Shit.”

His head turned away, then down.

“I haven’t given up on her, Danny. Or the others, either. We’ll find out something.”

I studied his face; the hollows seemed deeper than before.

“How are you doing? You eating?”

“I’ve been better.”

“You look pale. Worn out.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re moving more slowly.”

His eyes shifted away.

“What is it, Danny?”

Somewhere in the arc away from me and back again, he found the courage he was looking for.

“I’ve got an appointment at the clinic. In about an hour.”

“Regular checkup?”

“No. I made it yesterday. Asked if they could squeeze me in.”

That meant he was having special problems, urgent problems.

I took a deep breath, and tried to ignore the churning in my guts.

“I’ll drive you.”

“Thanks. Driving’s not so easy for me these days.”

His eyes were steady but his voice faltered, giving him away. I reached out, touched his face.

“You’re young, Danny. You’re strong. It’s going to be all right.”

“Sure.”

“Be positive.”

He laughed.

“I’ve been positive for eight years, Ben.” He raised an arm, sniffed one of his pits. “I better take a shower, get ready.”

He took the stairs to his apartment one painful step at a time, clutching the handrail. I followed, and waited for him on the couch, stroking Maggie’s head as she rested it in my lap. Danny slipped from his bedroom into the bathroom, carrying fresh underwear and a towel, and a minute later I heard the shower running. When he emerged a few minutes after that, shirtless in jeans, I was waiting for him outside the bathroom door. His tangled hair was wet, his upper body damp. On his left breast was a small tattoo I hadn’t seen before, a bolt of yellow lightning outlined in blue.

I opened my arms to him.

“Come here.”

He hesitated, then eased himself up against me while I braced against the wall. I closed my eyes, pressed my face into his uncombed hair, spread my hands across his dewy back.

It was difficult to imagine that he was sick. Touching him felt so incredibly good.

He relaxed a little, and I drew him closer still. I stroked his bony back, then more boldly lower down, kneading his slender butt with my big hands, until I felt the hardness below his belly meeting mine.

My lips rested briefly on his neck, then roved his face, tracing its shape, kissing his eyes closed, softly brushing the patches where his beard had gone unshaved.

When I found his lips, I kissed him the way I’d wanted to since the first time I’d met him: tenderly, safely, but with an unashamed yearning that grew more excited as I felt him respond. I took his face in my hands and held him away from me for a moment so I could look into his eyes, so I could tell him without words how much he meant to me.

“I should get dressed, Ben. I—”

I put a finger to his lips.

“Shhh.”

I lowered my lips to the smooth expanse of his chest, kissing and nibbling at his nipples until I felt them rise up, losing their softness. My tongue searched out the rest, the gentle curves between his nipples and his ribs, the sprinkling of fine, dark hairs in the cavity where his breastbone formed, the thin path of curls that ran down his belly into the dark cushion of hair peeking over the waistline of his sagging jeans.

I popped open the buttons and pressed my face against the bulge that filled his briefs, feeling the damp heat coming off his scrotum, crazy for his smell, aching to taste him.

When I reached for the waistband, he grabbed my hands.

“No, Ben.”

I felt his hands under my arms, pulling me up.

“I won’t do anything that isn’t safe, Danny.”

“I know. It’s not that.”

I touched his face again, looked into his eyes.

“What is it, then?”

“It’s not the right time.”

“You may be sick, Danny. But you’re still a handsome man. You’re still desirable.”

His eyes were moist with an emotion I couldn’t put a name to. I felt wonderfully close to him, yet unbearably distant at the same time.

“We should go, Ben. I don’t want to be late.”

He pulled away, and I watched him disappear into his bedroom, where the door closed quietly behind him.

There was a deep, quiet wisdom about Danny, a calmness that belied his youth and situation. Maybe he sensed that I was trying to start something I was unlikely to finish. Maybe he knew me better than I knew myself.

When he came out, he’d slipped into a T-shirt and a pair of leather huaraches and brushed back his hair. He spoke before I could touch him again.

“I guess we should get going.”

As we climbed into the Mustang, I grew heavy with the reality of what I was doing. I hadn’t been in a place that cared for PWAs since Jacques had died seven years ago, and I’d vowed that I never would—not a clinic, not a hospital, not a hospice. And now I was driving straight back to that place, straight back to hell.

We drove out Third Street with the top down, listening to a Los Lobos tune Danny found on the radio while he gave me directions to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation clinic.

“I thought they were the other way,” I said. “On the east side.”

“They have a west side clinic now, at Cedars-Sinai. Out in your neck of the woods.” He looked out at the big, elegant houses as we cruised through Hancock Park. “I’ve heard it’s a good place to be if you get sick.”

“You’re not going to get sick, dammit.”

“I am sick, Ben.”

“OK, you’ve got AIDS. But most PWAs are outpatients now. Living with it, doing OK. You know that. That’s why AHF set up these clinics—to keep people out of the hospital.”

“Let’s not argue.”

“Have you been admitted before?”

“Not for AIDS.”

“Night sweats? Diarrhea? Severe weight loss?”

“Not for a while.”

“Then you’re doing pretty good.”

“OK, I’m doing pretty good.”

He settled back in his seat, tipped his head back, let the warm breeze dry his hair.

Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Some problems with KS. That’s about it.”

KS—Kaposi’s sarcoma—the cancerous purple lesions that appear on various parts of the body, and sometimes internally, when the immune system grows too weak to fight them off or keep them from spreading. I hadn’t seen a sign of KS on Danny.

“That’s one of the more treatable infections.”

“Yeah.” His eyes shifted my way, but only slightly. “Like you said, I’ve been real lucky.”

No scarring shingles, I thought. No crippling, or agonizing stomach infections. No cancerous lymphoma or suffocating Pneumocystis or blinding cytomegalovirus. No dementia, that most dreaded of all AIDS afflictions. He had been lucky.

“What’s your T-cell count? Your viral load?”

He closed his eyes.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore, OK?”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

Suddenly, he was grinning.

“Sure you did. You’re a reporter. You guys pry for a living.”

Then: “Turn left here.”

I turned onto Gracie Allen Drive, continued to George Burns Road, and made a left at the stop sign, just before the Steven Spielberg Pediatric Research Center. All around us, other medical facilities named for their benefactors rose up, a small city devoted to the maimed and sick. I tried to steel myself for what lay ahead.

A minute later, we were pulling into a parking space in the cool dimness of an underground garage. Then we were in a corridor, passing sick people, injured people, sad-looking people. Doctors, nurses, medical administrators, messengers picking up or delivering lab specimens. The smell of pharmaceuticals, disinfectant, the battle against illness. It was all around, like the plague itself.

I felt disconnected from myself, moving robotically.

We were in an elevator, riding up. A man not much older than Danny rode with us. He had pushed the same button we had, for the seventh floor. The skin of his face was shiny, stretched taut over his skull, a sure sign of wasting syndrome. His color was ashen, his breathing raspy, his hair wispy and brittle; he covered a dry cough with a pale, bony hand.

I kept my eyes away from him.

Still, inside my head, I saw Jacques—diapered for diarrhea, leaning on a walker, struggling for air. Living his last months, his last days without hope. Gone less than two years after his diagnosis.

It’s different now. Things have changed so much in recent years. Anti-virals. Protease inhibitors. The combinations, the so-called miracle drugs
.

The doors opened at the third floor to let passengers in and out. Danny and I moved to the back. Our arms were touching, and our shoulders. I could feel his body expand, ever so slightly, as he breathed.

AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence. It’s become a chronic, treatable disease. We’ve entered a new era of hope.

For some. For the lucky ones
.

The doors opened again and Danny nudged me, indicating our floor.

We stepped out and held the door for the sick man. He nodded his thanks and shuffled along behind us. We turned right into a carpeted corridor that led us to a door at the end. I let Danny go in first and held the door until the man behind us was through it.

The waiting room was bright and comfortable, with magazines and plants, and a game with wooden blocks in the corner for children. A clean-cut young man in a coat and tie stood behind the counter, greeting Danny by his first name like an old friend. Danny signed in and we sat down together, saying nothing, until his name was called.

A water cooler was positioned directly in front of me, posted with a sign:

THIS WATER HAS BEEN FILTERED

FOR CRYPTOSPORIDIUM AND OTHER BACTERIA

OF RISK TO IMMUNO-DEPRESSED PERSONS

Beside the water cooler sat a young African-American woman gently bouncing a cherub-faced black baby on her big thigh. I couldn’t tell if she was sick or the baby. Maybe both, I thought, maybe neither. They could have been waiting for someone inside—a husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, relative, neighbor. The endless possibilities sharpened my despair.

I heard someone coughing behind me, sensed a man filling out forms to my right. If he was filling out forms, it probably meant he was a new client, recently HIV-positive. I wondered what must be going on inside him. I wondered how he could hold the pen straight or find the composure to fill in mundane words on empty lines. I wondered how he managed to stay sane.

“I stuff myself constantly.” The voice came from a thin young man sitting nearby, directly to the older man sitting next to him. “Cookies. Pastry. Ice cream. I still can’t put on weight.”

“The AIDS diet, honey,” the other man said. “Eat all you want and still look like Kate Moss. Somebody should patent it.”

One or two others in the room laughed. I didn’t understand it. They were supposed to be depressed, desperate, terrified.

Instead, they were making jokes.

I crossed to the cooler, filled a cup with cold water, drank it with an unsteady hand. I sat back down, trying to breathe deeply and slowly and not think about what was all around me.

AIDS World. The last place on earth I want to be
.