Missing (23 page)

Rodner put a hand on his knee, wincing as if the pain
from the scratch were intolerable—a weak, effeminate man with an
ugly streak of vindictiveness that he’d gotten his chance to
exercise in full, like a boy who’d held his breath long enough to
get his way.

"Now I want you to leave. And please inform
Paul’s mother—and Paul himself, if you see him—that I never
want to see his shabby face again."

I walked back out to the car, through the rain,
thinking about Paul Grandin’s desperation. He’d been arrested on
the twenty-ninth and spent the night in jail. A week and a half
later, he’d met with Mason Greenleaf at Nine Mile, probably looking
for the same kind of help that he eventually sought from Rodner. What
had passed between them, no one but Paul Grandin knew. But I couldn’t
see Mason involving himself in another criminal solicitation case—no
matter how responsible he felt toward the boy. For that matter, I
didn’t know what kind of help Mason—or anyone else—could have
been to Grandin. Short of trying to bribe the police into dropping
the charges, there was little that anyone could do for the kid. He
was going to jail this time. That was obvious.

Whatever Paul Grandin had wanted from Mason, he
clearly hadn’t gotten it, or he wouldn’t haven ended up with
Rodner on Sunday night, six days later. The very fact that he’d
ended up with Rodner at all, a man who hated him, bespoke his
desperation. The kid must have lost his job soon after he talked to
Greenleaf. He had no permanent place to stay. He’d been bouncing
from old friend to old friend, wearing out a welcome that was already
threadbare. His mother had handed his case over to lawyers. His
peculiarly childish charm, that wounded helplessness that had kept
Meisel and quite possibly Greenleaf himself in his corner, was
failing him. Greenleaf himself was failing him.

But then something had changed in Mason Greenleaf.
Two days after he’d spoken to the kid, Mason had dropped out of his
ordinary life, reemerging on the following Monday night to meet with
Paul Grandin again and his gray-haired friend at Stacie’s bar—and
subsequently, to check into the Washington Hotel and kill himself
Something had happened to him over that weekend, some change of mind
or heart that had led him back to Paul Grandin and to his death. I
didn’t know what had ultimately broken Greenleaf’s spirit, but I
did know that finding Paul Grandin was the key.
 

24

IT was past eleven when I pulled up in front of the
apartment on Ohio Avenue. There was a light in my bay window that I
hadn’t turned on when I left the house. I parked on Warner and
walked up through the rain to my door. I could hear Cindy moving
around inside, then I saw her through the curtains, as she walked
over to the couch. I watched her for a while through the window,
liking the fact that she was there—the freshness of it. I liked the
way she looked as she cozied up on the couch, tucking her feet under
her butt, holding her curly hair back from her forehead, reading a
letter she held in her right hand.

As I unlocked the door and stepped into the narrow
hall, she dropped the letter, jumped up, and ran over to me, smiling.
I kissed her mouth and kissed her again.

"My Lord," she said. "That was a nice
welcome."

"I’m glad you’re here."

"Yeah? I’m glad I’m here, too. I like your
things. Your books and records. We had a little get-acquainted chat
while I read." I glanced at the couch, where a pile of mail was
sitting on the cushions.

"I stopped at Mason’s house," she said,
"on my way over here. I just couldn’t stand the thought of all
those unopened letters piling up on his porch."

"I don’t suppose you found one from Paul
Grandin, Jr.?"

She gave me an odd look. "Why did you say that?"

I went ahead and told her what I suspected. "I’m
pretty sure he had something to do with Mason’s suicide."

I explained what I’d learned about the first
solicitation bust immediately preceding Mason’s arrest, about the
money that Mason had been doling out to the boy, about Grandin’s
second arrest in late June, about his meeting with Mason at Nine Mile
soon after, about the kid’s desperate search for shelter during the
week that Mason had disappeared, and about their subsequent meeting
at the bar on the night of Mason’s death. The way the case was
shaping up, there was no way around Paul Grandin, Jr.—and his
relationship with Mason Greenleaf.

As I spoke, Cindy sank down on the couch, staring
morbidly at the far wall. "Mason didn’t talk about Paul much,"
she said when I’d finished. "But I knew that they were still
friends. I even saw him at the house a couple of times, just after
Mason and I first met. Once Mason and I started living together, Paul
didn’t come by. Still, there was something between them. I’m not
sure what. But Mason always acted guilty when Paul’s name came up.
At first I thought maybe he had slept with him—sometime that summer
after the kid graduated from high school, before he went off to drama
camp. But once I got to know Mason I realized it was so out of
character for him to do something like that that I began to think it
was something else—something that stretched way back into Mason’s
past. The kid was very lazy, self-centered, and manipulative, I could
see for myself. And Mason was no dummy when it came to being
manipulated by lazy, self-centered friends. What I ended up thinking
was that Paul reminded Mason of his roommate, Ralph Cable, and that
he put up with the kid’s shenanigans as a kind of penance for
turning his back on Ralph."

"Did Mason take the blame in the solicitation
case as an act of penance?" I said dubiously.

"Mason was living with Del at that time, so I
don’t know what happened there. But Sully used to say Del was very
aggressive about being gay. He believed in acting up—you know,
coming out of the closet, being gay and being proud of it. Mason was
never like that. He was never comfortable being bisexual. He didn’t
believe in kidding himself about it, but he wasn’t a proselyte."

"Are you saying that Del may have had an
influence on Paul Grandin?"

"I guess I am," Cindy said. "Paul used
to spend a lot of time at Del’s house. After all, that was where
Mason lived half the time. Being around Del, hearing him preach about
gay pride, it might have had an effect on Paul, who was apparently
very unhappy about himself and very impressionable. This thing about
Paul getting arrested the first time in a park—that was something
Mason said Del used to do before they met. Go to the parks and have
anonymous sex in the public johns. Even after AIDS he used to do it.
It was like a point of honor with him. He wasn’t going to be scared
out of being who he was or living the life he wanted to live. It was
one of the main reasons that Mason broke off with him—he was afraid
that Del had contracted AIDS because of his promiscuity."

I stared at Cindy, and she looked away at the pile of
letters sitting beside her on the sofa cushion. She reached over and
picked up one of the letters, handing it to me.

"I was reading it when you knocked on the door."

I stared at the letter, which was written on plain
paper and post-marked Columbus, Ohio. It was dated July 19, the
Tuesday that Mason’s body was found in the Washington Hotel.

Dear Mason,
I’m
grateful for all that you did for me yesterday. Nancy knows I’m
here, although she doesn’t know that you helped me, of course. I
talked to her late last night on the pay phone. She says she ’s
going to try to come up and be with me whenever she can. My mother
doesn’t really give a damn. And Dad . . .well, you know exactly how
impossible that is. I tried to find another way out. Believe me. I
went everywhere I could think to go. But nobody wanted any part of
me, except, finally, you. I ’ve brought you so much trouble, Mason.
I hope you’ll find a way of forgiving me for that. I have to come
back, I will. But maybe everybody’ll get lucky and I won ’t have
to. I tried calling you late last night, too, and didn’t get an
answer. I could use some money for smokes and the phone. Nancy ’s
going to bring some. Maybe you could mail some up. You know the
address. I’m sorry about Del. Tell him thanks, too.
Love,
Paul

"What the hell?" I said out loud.

"It looks like Mason helped him," Cindy
said. "Or gave him money to hide out."

"It must’ve been that night in the bar,"
I said, knowing that still didn’t answer the question of who the
accomplice was that Mason and Paul had been drinking with and
Sullivan had apparently contacted, or what he had to do with getting
Paul out of town, or why Greenleaf had immediately afterward gone
from that bar, up that damn hill, into that hotel and killed himself.

"Who’s Nancy?" Cindy asked,

I assumed that was Paul Grandin, Jr.’s, sister. At
least, that’s what I told her. I took another look at the envelope,
but there was no return address on the flap. The kid said that Mason
knew the address, but Mason was dead.

I went over to the phone in the kitchen nook, called
information, and got Paul Grandin, Sr.’s, phone number. I scribbled
it down in my notebook as I hung up. I’d no sooner put the phone
down than it rang, startling me and making Cindy jump. I picked it up
and said hello.

"Mr. Stoner," a woman said in a very
nervous voice, "this is Marlene Bateman. Sully’s neighbor?"

"Oh, yes, Ms. Bateman. Did he finally get in?"

"Something’s wrong, Mr. Stoner. The police
have just called."

"What is it, Ms. Bateman?" I said, knowing
already from the sound of her voice that the man was dead. Her voice
began to shake. "They’ve found Sully’s car on I-71, near
King’s Island. There’s been an accident." She started to
cry. "Sully’s dead. They want somebody to come there
to—identify the body. They said they’re having trouble getting
him out of the wreckage. Frankly, I don’t think I can do it. I know
it’s terribly presumptuous. But I couldn’t think of anyone to
call. And since you’re a law enforcement professional, I was hoping
. . ."

"I’ll take care of it," I told her.

"Tell them to take him to Weiderman’s Funeral
Home. I’ll . . .make the arrangements."

At first Cindy insisted on going with me. Sullivan
was her friend, and she felt an obligation to come along. But I
managed to convince her that it was a bad idea. She’d seen enough
death already. And she knew it.

"You’ll probably be a while, right?" she
said as I got ready to leave.

"Yeah. Maybe you should go home. These things
have a way of dragging out, and I may not be back until morning."

"I’ll stay. It would be too depressing at home
with Sully dead, too." She gave me a questioning look. "You
don’t think this has anything to do with Mason?"

"Sullivan said he’d talked to someone who’d
seen Mason, and last night his landlady saw him with a guy that fits
the description of the older man at Stacie’s bar."

Cindy tapped her foot nervously. "I don’t like
this. It’s frightening."

"It’s unsettling," I agreed.

"You know, I haven’t felt scared up till now.
Just angry and suspicious. But it’s too strange, Sully getting
killed." She looked around the unfamiliar room and shuddered up
her spine. "Paul had something to do with both of these deaths.
I feel it."

"I think we’re going to have to find him."

"How?"

"Possibly through his sister. She apparently
knows where he is—or was, as of a week ago."

"Why did he mention Del in that letter?"

It was a question I’d wondered about myself "It’s
something else to look into."

Cindy reached out for me suddenly, grabbing my arm as
if I’d lost my balance—or she had. "Maybe you shouldn’t,
Harry. Maybe we should stop."

I sat down on the arm of the sofa and pulled her to
me. "Cindy, I can take care of myself I’m pretty good at it,
actually."

"I know that. But I cou1dn’t stand it if
something happened to you, too, because of Mason. His death is
terrible. I regret it, I mourn it. I always will. But I won’t let
you get hurt because of it—because of me." She stared directly
into my eyes. "I’m not kidding, Harry. Mason would have felt
exactly the same way."

I kissed her on the forehead. "I’ll have to
make sure that nothing happens."

She smiled, but she didn’t look confident. "This
is a part of life I’ve successfully avoided up till now," she
said

"Which part is that?"

"Your part. The dangerous part."

I smiled. "Living with Mason Greenleaf wasn’t
exactly a safe bet."

"Yes, it was. In most ways it was exactly that.
Safe sex. Safe haven. No chance of getting hurt." She laughed
mordantly. "I’m beginning to understand just how unrealistic
that whole idea is."

I stood up and went over to the door. "I’ll
try to call, if I can. If you get lonely, the girl upstairs is a good
soul."

Cindy arched an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?"

"She’s twenty-two
years old. A grad student in English. Her name is Linda Fine. Tell
her you’re a friend of mine. My new roommate."