The Burning Plain (41 page)

“When did you realize it was more than a coincidence?”

“Nick had told me the calls for her would stop, and he was very upset when I told him the two of you had called. Very upset. Unhinged, almost. When I found out Schilling had been murdered, I started to think there was something very bad going on here.”

“When was the last time you spoke to Nick?” I asked.

“Two days ago,” she said, “after the police came and interviewed me about Schilling. I could tell they weren’t buying my act. I called Nick in a panic and asked him what I should do. He told me not to do anything, that it would all blow over soon. But he sounded kind of panicked himself, so I wasn’t reassured.” She paused. “I haven’t been to work since. I’m afraid to go back there.”

“Have you been threatened?” Serena asked.

“No, but I could see the writing on the wall. Joanne was hired to play a witness, I was hired to play her roommate and she ended up dead. Nick, who never breaks a sweat, is frantic. I don’t know how this movie ends, but I’m not liking where my character’s going.”

“It might be a good idea for you to stay somewhere else for a while,” Serena said.

Walsh got up and opened a drawer, removing an envelope. “Airplane tickets,” she said. “I’m flying up to Seattle tonight to spend some time with family.”

“I’ll need a statement from you before you leave,” Serena said.

Walsh hesitated, “I don’t know about that.”

“If you want to be able to come back someday,” Serena said, “you’re going to have to help us out here.”

Walsh looked at me. “Is that true?”

“I’m afraid so, Josey.”

“All right, but I want something in exchange.”

“What?” I asked.

“When this is all over, exclusive movie rights to your stories.”

Serena dropped me at the bottom of the hill to my house, then she and Josey Walsh continued downtown to Parker Center, where she had arranged for Walsh to make a statement to the detectives investigating Schilling’s murder before she flew to Seattle. Walsh had given us the first solid evidence that connected Asuras to any crime, albeit suborning perjury rather than murder. If the cops did their job, the charges could be ratcheted up. While we waited for Walsh to pack, Serena told me she thought she would try to use Walsh’s statement to persuade the sheriff to reopen the investigation into Alex Amerian’s murder. She was, in fact, full of plans.

“What about your boss, the DA? Won’t he be pissed when he gets wind that you’re going after his friend, Asuras?”

“I’m not going to tell him,” she said. “And hopefully, he won’t find out until it’s time to indict the asshole, in which case Jack will get some very nice headlines out of it.”

“You’ll get some nice headlines out of it, too.”

“Oh, screw you, Henry. You’ve patronized me from the very beginning. You really don’t think much of me as a lawyer, do you?”

“I’m sure you’re a perfectly competent lawyer, Serena.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

“You let yourself be used before in this case by the DA and the sheriff,” I said. “I’m not sure it won’t happen again.”

“Watch me,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I will.”

I came down the steps from the street to my front door. I hadn’t left the porch light on and it was very dark. I wanted to change clothes, eat something and vegetate in front of CNN for a while before calling it a night. As I fumbled with my house keys, I heard rapidly approaching footsteps behind me. I jerked around and saw a man emerging from the shrubbery, holding something in one of his hands. I swung wildly, connected with his chest and knocked him to the ground.

“Who the hell are you?” I said to the figure sprawled beneath me.

“Henry?” he panted. “Mr. Rios? It’s me, Rod. Rod Morse.”

“R
OD? I’M REALLY
sorry.”

The boy slowly got to his feet. He was tall, an even six-footer at least, but hunched his shoulders slightly, making him seem shorter. The object he’d been carrying was a backpack. He picked it up with one hand, and with the other tamped down a mass of greasy, black hair. There was a stubborn patch of acne on his chin and a faint trace of beard on his cheeks. His clothes—slacks, a white shirt, a blue blazer—were dusty and soiled. The sweaty, sour smell of fear issued from his thin body. Only his eyes were beautiful—large, dark, clear: his sister’s eyes.

“That’s okay,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Someone broke into my house recently. I’m a little jumpy. Come inside,” I said, unlocking the door. I led him into the kitchen and automatically set about making a pot of coffee. “How did you get here?”

He fell into a chair, dropping his backpack. “I ran away at the airport. We had to fly to San Francisco to catch a plane to Salt Lake. When they started calling our flight, I told my Dad I had to use the bathroom. As soon as I saw him board the plane, I ran outside and jumped on a bus that took me to San Francisco. I wandered around there for a day deciding what to do. I went to the Greyhound station to buy a bus ticket to here, but I only had enough money to get to Santa Barbara. I hitchhiked the rest of the way.”

“Why didn’t you call Phil Wise in San Francisco?”

“I only talked to him once. I didn’t know if he would help me. I knew you would.”

“You look like you’ve been traveling for weeks.”

He grinned with shy pride. “I know. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“When did you get into LA?”

“Yesterday. My ride dropped me off at the beach. I slept there last night and then I started walking to your house. This is a big city. It took me all day.”

“You walked here from the beach? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I needed time to think,” he said.

“To think about what, Rod?”

“Everything that’s happened since my dad told me he knew about you and Mr. Wise. It’s been like bam! bam! bam! One thing after another.” His voice trembled. “And this city, it’s so big, Mr. Rios. There are so many people and all of them look like they hate being here. It’s totally overwhelming.”

“Especially on an empty stomach. I’ll order some takeout while you clean up,” I said. “I’ll show you the guest bathroom. You can take a shower if you want.”

“I don’t have any other clothes,” he said.

“We’re about the same size,” I replied. “You can borrow a pair of jeans and a tee shirt.” I glanced at his feet; they were boats. “You’re on your own for shoes.”

He started to laugh, then broke down, shaking and sobbing. I didn’t understand why an offer of clothes should have that effect on him, but then I hadn’t spent two days on the road, running away from parents who wanted to commit me to a psychiatric hospital to a stranger who might or might not take me in. And I hadn’t been sixteen in nearly thirty years, but I remembered, dimly, that emotionally, sixteen was like walking over a suspension bridge in a high wind, and if you were gay on top of it, those winds could reach hurricane velocity. Whatever the trigger, he had earned his tears.

I squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all right, Rod. Everything will work out.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my stomach.

I watched him empty carton after carton of Chinese food, pausing only to ask, “What’s this?” before he inhaled it. Cleaned and combed, in a white tee shirt and black jeans, he looked as wholesome as a Gap ad except for the incipient worry lines that bracketed his mouth and furrowed his forehead. As he drank a liter of Coke, I remembered the line from Robert Frost, “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” But it wasn’t any kid stuff that had etched those hard lines in his face or caused the hurt in his eyes. He explained what had happened after an anonymous caller told his father Rod was about to abducted by two adult homosexuals.

“He said you and Mr. Wise would torture me and murder me,” Rod said between bites of kung pao chicken. “Like that guy who kept people in his refrigerator …”

“Jeffrey Dahmer,” I said. “What did you tell your father when he confronted you?”

“I told him the truth,” he said. “I said you were lawyers who were going to help me stop him from sending me to a mental hospital. I told him I wasn’t crazy, I was just gay, and that’s how I was born and nothing was going to change it.”

“How did he take that?”

“He hit me. He said he was going to beat the devil out of me. My mom had to stop him. He told me to pack.” He mashed a grain of rice with his fork. “My dad never hit me before. Never.”

“He panicked. People don’t behave very well when they panic.”

He stuffed another bite of food into his mouth and chewed anxiously. “What’s going to happen to me?”

I’d been expecting the question, and dreading it. Rod was now a runaway, but that didn’t change his legal status as an unemancipated minor subject to the control of his parents. Pending the outcome of the petition Phil had filed in juvenile court, I was duty-bound to notify Rod’s parents of his whereabouts and return him to them. They would then ship him off to Utah and remove him from the California court’s jurisdiction. If I harbored him until the court acted on the petition, I would be breaking various laws including, but not limited to, contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Moreover, I couldn’t even tell Phil that Rod was in my custody without putting him in the position of either having to disclose Rod’s whereabouts to the court or risk contempt by refusing.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Phil filed the petition to declare you a ward of the court. It’s set for hearing next week. We’ll have to show up for that.”

He frowned. “What if my parents try to take me back?”

“You’ll be with Phil and me.”

“What if the court says I have to go with them?”

“Then you’d have to go with them,” I said, “but we could ask the court to order them to keep you in the state until the case is resolved.”

“You know they’ll send me away,” he said.

“They would be breaking the law.”

“My dad says there’s man’s law and there’s God’s law, and if there’s a conflict, a Christian has to follow God’s law.” He pushed his plate away. “If the court makes me go back to them, you’ll never see me again.”

“If I don’t return you to your parents, then I’ll be breaking the law and unlike your father, it’s the only law I have. Anyway, we both know they’ll come looking for you here.”

He bolted from the table outside to the deck. I went after him and found him searching the red night sky.

“Rod …”

“This girl in my history class gave a report on the Underground Railway for Black History Month,” he said. “She said there were people who would take the slaves from the South to Canada by following the Big Dipper.” He pointed to the faint glimmer of the constellation above a row of palm trees. “They stayed in safe houses on the way. I was looking at the Big Dipper last night on the beach. I thought I would be safe here.”

“You can’t run away from being a minor, unfortunately. When you’re eighteen, your parents won’t be able to touch you.”

He turned, leaned his thin frame against the railing, and looked at me. “What is it like to be gay?”

“What do you mean, Rod?”

“You’ve been gay all your life,” he said. “What is it like? You live alone, don’t you?”

“I haven’t always lived alone,” I said. “My lover died about a year ago.”

“He had AIDS?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you?”

“No, Rod, not every gay man has AIDS.”

“When I was in San Francisco,” he said, “I found the gay neighborhood, what’s it called? Castro Street. I saw a man in a wheelchair. His face had purple scars and he was so skinny I couldn’t believe he was alive. He had AIDS.”

“Probably,” I said.

“I guess I was staring at him because he asked if I was cruising him. I mean, he’s half-dead and still thinking about sex.” He crossed his arms. “There were men in leather clothes, and guys dressed up like nuns with their faces painted like clowns. I didn’t see anyone my age. They were all old. They didn’t look happy.”

“You can’t tell by looking at someone whether they’re happy or not.”

“Are you?”

“You mean, am I happy to be homosexual?”

He nodded. I sat down at the edge of the chaise lounge where Josh had spent his last days lying bundled up in the sun, staring at the sky. I looked at the thin, dark-haired boy and saw myself at sixteen, the age when I also realized I was gay, and tried to think what answer I would have wanted to hear to his question. I knew that answer, but it wasn’t the one I could provide. I couldn’t tell Rod that once he came out his troubles would be over.

“Happy and unhappy are feelings, Rod,” I said. “They come and go and they don’t have much to do with character. I mean, the worst person in the world may be happier than the best person in the world, but which one would you rather be?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I would rather be happy. I don’t know if I can find that out here, but I know what’s waiting for me at home. I’m not sure I’m going to make it to eighteen if you send me back.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll think of something. I’ll find you a safe house.”

I put him to bed in the guest room and pondered my next move. Gradually, I formulated a plan. The first step involved calling Richie. I reached his answering machine, which now said, “Miss Otis regrets … You know the rest.” When I said “urgent,” he picked up.

“It had better be urgent,” he sniped. “It’s eleven o’clock at night. I’m getting cold cream all over the phone.”

“I need a favor from you, Richie,” I said. “A very big favor.”

“A big favor? That calls for a cigarette.” I heard him strike a match. “All right.”

“Rod Morse turned up at my doorstep tonight.”

“I thought his evil parents shipped him off to the snake pit in Utah.”

“He ran away at the airport.”

“You go, girl!” Richie said. “Good for him.”

“But not so good for his case,” I said, and explained why.

“You’re not going to send him back to the Himmlers,” Richie said.

“His parents? No, I can’t bring myself to do it,” I replied. “But I can’t keep him here, either. They’ll come looking for him, Richie. I was hoping you’d take him in.”