Dangerously Happy (32 page)

“
I didn't trust you then, the way I trust you now,” he said, as if he'd read my mind.

It surprised me how afraid I was to quit my job. It wasn’t that I was worried I’d have trouble finding another one, if the music thing didn’t pan out. The fear was something irrational. Like quitting a salaried prison sentence with benefits was the kind of thing only drug-addled and possibly schizophrenic people like Jack Kerouac or Henry Miller did. Like I was sealing a pact with the devil, and pursuing a life doing what I loved meant giving up all stability in my life from there on out. For the rest of my life I’d drift aimlessly, sleeping on friends’ couches or in my car, alienating my family and friends, shuffling desperately, pathetically from lover to lover until there wouldn’t be one person left on the whole planet, or at least in all of L.A., who wasn’t sick of the sight of my face.

My rational brain, though, remembered that it was just a job, just long enough to walk into my boss’s office and hand her my two-weeks’ notice. I’d expected her to try to talk me out of my bout of insanity, but when she asked me if I’d had a better offer elsewhere and I told her that I was going to work on my music full time for a while, she just smiled enigmatically, leaving me wondering if she was silently laughing at me, or jealous that I was escaping and leaving her there to another fifteen or twenty years of going through the same motions in the same maze of cubicles and offices day after day. To celebrate, Dario took me to Shutters in Santa Monica for a romantic celebration dinner. It still gave me a giddy thrill, being physical with him in public. Just slipping my arm around his waist as we waited to be seated, holding hands across the table. I kept waiting to catch someone staring, to overhear a disapproving comment, but it never happened.

Everything was perfect. And perfection can’t last.

I sensed something was wrong almost as soon as I stepped off the stage, because Dario wasn’t anywhere in sight. He wasn’t there, and while he may have let his hosting tasks distract him when Babel was on, I always had his undivided attention when I played my solo sets. The only time he hadn't been there was the night they'd found Bethany.

Casually, I asked Tom if he’d seen Dario. Then I started making my way through the space, checking the bathroom. Checking the roof. With a sour feeling in my gut, hating myself, I even checked upstairs, but there was no sign of him. Actually, there was a sign. The teak screen was unlocked and out of place. After walking the whole upstairs—bedroom, half-built study, bathroom—I went downstairs and locked the screen into its proper position, hiding and blocking the stairs. When I saw the two guys on clandestine patrol assignment for that night, I asked them if they’d seen Dario. No.

I don’t know what I thought was going on, but in my mounting panic, I texted him, then went back to wandering the loft, couch by couch, corner by corner, back up to the roof and back down again, checking my phone every thirty seconds. It was getting late. People were starting to leave. I was on the verge of getting Tom and the rest of our security insiders involved when I got a text. “Go to the roof.”

Flat out terrified I hurried to the stairwell and ran up, taking two steps at a time, thinking too late that I should have brought a couple other guys with me. Then thinking, he’d been up there, and I’d missed him. Was he hurt? Had he been assaulted? How could I have been so careless? Why hadn’t I told everyone Dario was missing? Why hadn’t I made everyone start looking for him the second I came off the stage and realized he wasn’t standing there, watching me, when I knew he never let himself miss one single note when I performed solo? Maybe he'd still been fine at that moment, and I’d wasted more than an hour—God, I didn’t want to let my brain form those images of what could have happened during that hour—because . . . Because what? Just because I didn’t want to seem like a nervous, jealous boyfriend?

I still didn’t see him. I called out. No answer. I called out again, my throat squeezing his name out in a high, scratchy, panicked scream.

My phone rang.

“
Dario? Where are you? Are you okay?”

“
I’m okay. I’m sorry I let you worry.” His voice sounded weird. Like he was trying to sound calm, but wasn’t.

“
Where are you?” I asked, trying to sound normal, and failing as badly as he had.

No answer.

“
Dario? What’s wrong?”

“
I’ll be there soon,” he finally said. Then he hung up.

Shaking, I paced the perimeter of the roof, afraid to go downstairs and face Tom or anyone else, shaken up as I was and with no answer for why I was so freaked out. Finally, when I’d gotten myself half way together I went down, just in time to say good night to Clara, Tom and the guys. As soon as they were gone, my craziest fears started gnawing at me, my imagination getting wilder with every passing minute.

My phone rang again.

“
Dario. God, I’m getting really worried. Why aren’t you back yet?” The adrenaline made me sound crazy. Made me sound angry, when I was just scared.

“
I’m sorry. I can’t . . .”

Mounting panic. “Can’t what, love?”

“
I can’t come home.” He was crying.

Jesus. Jesus. I was going to be sick. “Is someone there with you? Is someone . . . ” I didn’t want to say it. “Is someone hurting you?”

“
No. I’m safe. I just can’t.”

“
Please, Dario. Tell me where you are. Let me come get you.”

At that hour, I made it to the beach in less than twenty minutes. Found him on the bench on the strand, empty save a few drunken stragglers weaving clumsily along the path in front of one of our weekend brunch places. When I put my arms around him, he hugged me back, but after he could hardly look at me. Dario, whose direct, earnest gaze had grounded me through months of firsts couldn’t meet my eyes.

Suddenly, I knew what had happened. He’d been with someone else. It stunned me that all I felt in the moment of that epiphany was relief. God, it was like a crane had lifted a fallen tree off my chest and I could breathe again. I took his hands in mine. Tried to hold him safe in my gaze the way he’d done for me so many times. Made my voice low and gentle. “Dario. Just tell me.”

He raised his eyes to meet mine. Tears slid down his face. His mouth twisting, he said, “I fucked up.”

“
That’s okay. It’s going to be fine. Don’t be afraid. Just tell me.”

“
I don’t want to say it. I think when I say it, I’m going to lose you.”

“
You’re not going to lose me. I promise.”

“
You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“
Were you with someone else?”

Suddenly his face smoothed, and for a second I thought it was because I’d saved him from having to make that confession, saved him from his fear that we were finished, saved him from the pain of pronouncing the words that would end us forever. But when he spoke again, I saw that he hadn’t softened. He’d hardened. That he’d made himself rigid and cold to get through what he had to say. “No.”

“
Where have you been?” I asked. Then I made myself wait.

Still hard and cold, after a long silence Dario said quietly, “I caught him.”

I didn’t understand. Or, I understood right away, but wanted those words to mean something else. “Caught who?”

“
I was upstairs. I’ve been doing that, since that night Bethany was assaulted. I go up there, furtively, and watch the scene. Watch for anything strange. And tonight I saw him.”

“
The guy who attacked Bethany?”

“
We thought we were being so smart, switching from bottles to cartons of wine, so no one could drop pills in.” It was so strange, so scary, that cold flat voice coming out of that cold, emotionless face. It was like talking to someone else. Like it couldn’t be Dario. “He used a syringe. Mark turned around to get some cups, and the guy jabbed his syringe into the carton, then walked through the crowd and out the door.”

“
He left?”

“
He left. I ran down, I grabbed the carton. I stepped out into the stairwell. I could hear him going down the steps. That metallic echo of his feet landing. Not running. Not hurrying. Not being quiet. Just, plunk, plunk, plunk. Sneakers on metal steps. I waited until I guessed he was two floors down, then started descending, too. But quietly. I had to force myself to go slowly to keep that distance so he wouldn’t see me. I left the carton of wine in the dumpster, and followed him out. Followed him to his car. I didn’t think about it. It’s like someone planted a program in my brain, and it just executed itself. When he put the key in the door, I crept right up behind him and slammed his forehead against the car as hard as I could. Caught him before he hit the ground. Got his belt off him, and cinched it around his arms, above the elbows, behind his back. Dragged him around to the other side, got him in the passenger seat. He was conscious, but in shock. I got in the driver's seat, and took off.”

If I hadn't spent the last few hours descending into a dark certainty that something truly horrible had happened, I would have laughed. It would have seemed like a bad joke borrowed from a bad movie plot. “What are you talking about? Dario? What did you do?”

A long silence, his eyes meeting mine, but like he was looking at me through four inches of Plexiglass. “I gave him to Xavier.”

“
You . . .” I understood. But I didn’t want to understand. I wanted him to tell me something different than what I knew he was going to say. “You took him to Xavier’s?”

“
Yes.”

I couldn’t not ask. “What did Xavier do?”

“
While I was there? Nothing.”

“
You left?”

“
Xavi wouldn't let me stay.”

“
Jesus, Dario. What’s Xavier going to do with him?”

“
You know what Xavier is going to do with him.”

“
Is he going to kill him?”

“
No.”

“
We could go to Xavier’s. Stop it.”

“
It’s too late. It’s been three hours,” he said, and I had the feeling he’d done it on purpose. Waited to see me, waited to tell me, so I wouldn’t stop it.

“
Dario?” God, I didn’t want to say it. But I had to. “What if you were wrong? About what you saw? What if he wasn’t the guy?”

Dario reached into his jacket and held out his hand. A syringe, and a little plastic case of pills. I looked at the syringe more closely. Plunger down. A little liquid trapped between the black rubber plunger and the steel of the needle.

Another question I didn’t want to ask. “What if he goes to the cops?”

“
Maybe I’ll go to jail. Maybe Xavi will go to jail.” Dario in prison. It was unthinkable. Horrific beyond bearing. “I don’t think he saw me. I pulled his T-shirt up over his face while he was still out of it. I reclined his seat back so people in passing cars wouldn’t notice. But . . .”

I waited. Finally I asked, “What?”

“
Maybe I should turn myself in.”

“
Jesus, Dario. No.” I said as desperately, as pleadingly as if he’d told me he was going to kill himself.

His cold hard face came back to life. “I’ve put you in danger. Telling you. If we don’t tell the police now, you’re committing a crime.”

He was right.

“
I didn’t want to tell you. But if I hid it from you . . .”

“
What?” I asked after an eternal silence.

“
A secret like that between us, we couldn’t survive that.”

I think I nodded.