The Bottle Ghosts (15 page)

She laughed again. “That's okay. You know I never pass up a free lunch…. You
are
buying, aren't you?”

“Well, like, fer sher,” I said in my best Valley Boy-ese. “Etheridge's okay?”

“Etheridge's is fine. About ten after twelve? Whoever gets there first had better go in and try to get a table, though.”

“That'll be me. See you there.”

*

Luckily, Mollie had agreed to check the entire list, though she said it might take her a while, considering the City had a few other things for her to do in the course of her regular employment. I gave her a copy of the list I'd just happened to have typed up before I left the office to meet her, and promised that Jonathan and I would name our first-born after her.

We had a chance for a little non-business-related talk while we ate, and I was reminded how nice it is for gay guys to have women friends—straight or lesbian. We made tentative plans to get together for a Saturday night out, and parted company at about ten to one.

I had a couple of smaller cases that I'd been working on that filled in most of the rest of the day, so when the phone rang again, I was surprised to see it was nearly 3:30.

“Dick, it's Marty. I found the report on your Charles Whitaker, but you were right: it doesn't fit the Category Twelve pattern. He was reported missing by the sister he was apparently living with. Nothing about him being gay, or being an alcoholic. He was reported to the N.C.I.C., though.”

“Oh? Why's that?”

“There's an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Seems he skipped bail on a fatal traffic accident. That seems to be a pretty good reason for somebody to disappear.” There was a pause, and then: “But you think he's tied in with these others, don't you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, though don't ask me how. I hope to find out, though.”

“Well, if you need anything else, let me know.”

“Oh, have no doubt of that! And thanks again, Marty. I really appreciate it. Later….”

*

When Bradshaw showed up at exactly 4:30, I sat him down and went over my written report, then told him that I suspected that Jerry Shea's disappearance was somehow linked to the Qualicare alcohol counseling group. I still didn't mention the other missing men, but did say I had joined the group to find out what I could, and asked him not to mention my name or involvement to anyone from the group—including Brian Oaks—if he should run into them. I asked him to go back over what he'd told me in our previous talks and see if there might be anything he'd overlooked: any particular incident or argument or conflict Shea may have been involved in with any of the group's other members. Other than Carl…Sweeney?'s…frequent open antagonism toward all alcoholics including his own partner, which he'd already mentioned, there was nothing Bradshaw could think of.

I explained that this whole line of investigation would by necessity probably take a lot longer than either of us would like, but that if he wanted me to stay on the case, I would of course charge him only for the time I actually spent on the case itself. I did not tell him that I knew damned well I was going to follow through on the investigation whether he decided to keep paying me or not. Fortunately, his reaction was: “Do whatever it takes. I just want Jerry back home.”

God, human beings are incredible creatures! He had to know, somewhere inside himself, what I knew in my gut: that Jerry Shea would never be home again. But he could not or would not let himself admit it.

*

Thursday eventually came, and Jonathan and I found ourselves walking down the long ground-floor hallway of Qualicare's Family Care Center. Room 119 was the very last room, near a glass-doored exit which looked out onto a 25-foot patch of bare dirt with piles of sand on one side, leading to the plywood-covered door of another building under construction less than 50 feet away. We entered a small reception area with four or five chairs and a very hot looking guy in a form-fitting black T-shirt sitting behind a desk reading a Reader's Digest, which he quickly slipped into the top drawer of the desk.

“Can I help you?” he asked as he pushed the drawer closed. No smile. Not unfriendly, just disinterested.

“We're joining the group tonight,” I said. “Mr. Oaks said we needed to fill out some forms.”

The hunk, who did not have a name tag or a desk plaque to identify him, gave a quick head-up nod and reached into another drawer for a clipboard and a pen, which he handed to me, though his eyes were on Jonathan.

“Fill this out. You both have to sign.”

I took the clipboard and we retreated to two of the chairs next to the entry door.

It was a standard form asking for the standard information: names, address, Qualicare ID number, our acknowledgment of the laws of confidentiality, a disclaimer of Qualicare's lack of responsibility for just about anything. In the “Personal Information” section, for “Occupation,” I wrote “Researcher.” We signed and I got up and took the clipboard over to the desk. The hunk took it and set it to one side of the desk without looking at it.

I was getting some sort of odd vibes from this kid, and I had no idea what they were. I extended my hand.

“I'm Dick, and this is Jonathan.”

He reached across the desk and we shook hands. Not limp, not strong, just a handshake.

“I know.”

When he didn't volunteer any other information, I said: “And you are…”

“Nowell.” He released the handshake.

Nowell. Period.

“Well, it's nice to meet you, Nowell,” I said, and turned to join Jonathan who was feigning interest in a copy of
Time
.

Nowell got up from his desk and opened the door beside it. “You can go in now. Coffee's on the table by the window.”

Jonathan put his magazine back on the table beside his chair and got up as Nowell returned to his desk and sat down.

“Thanks,” we both said as we passed him to enter the slightly larger meeting room. A circle of comfortable if obviously institutional-looking chairs took up the center of the room, and directly in front of the single window was a table covered with a paper tablecloth, on which were a large aluminum, spigoted coffee urn, a stack of Styrofoam cups, several plastic spoons, some paper napkins, and small plastic bowls with packets of sugar and instant creamer.

We automatically moved toward it, not because we particularly wanted coffee, but just to give us something to do other than just stand there. We'd just filled our cups and Jonathan was tearing open a third packet of sugar when we heard the door to the hall open and an exchange of perfunctory “Hi”s. We turned toward the door to see a short, heavy-set guy in a florid Hawaiian shirt with colors so loud I wondered if it had come with a set of ear-plugs, accompanied by a tall, thin-to-the-point-of-emaciation man in jeans and a crisply starched and creased Marine short-sleeved uniform shirt with sergeant's patches on both shoulders. He was carrying two books: “The 12 Steps” and the Bible.

“Hi,” the heavy-set one said with a big smile. “You must be the new couple. Welcome to the group.”

They'd crossed the room by this time, and we exchanged handshakes and introductions. The shorter one was Victor, the gaunt one Keith. We'd no sooner got our names clarified when two more guys entered; one a good looking black man in rimless glasses, the other a truck-driver type with one of those three-day-stubble beards which were becoming so popular in the community. They introduced themselves as Paul (with the glasses) and Frank.

We stood around the coffee table exchanging small talk until Brian Oaks entered and closed the door behind him. He looked around at the group, then up at the clock to the left of the door. It read 6:58. Oaks shook hands all around, welcomed Jonathan and me, asked if we'd met the others, and poured himself a cup of coffee as the rest of us moved to the chairs and sat down. Jonathan scooted his chair over towards mine until our knees and calves were almost touching.

Oaks sat down, looked up at the clock again.

“Well, I think we should get started.”

At that point, the door opened and two more men entered. I recognized the first one as one of the guys we'd seen the night we'd enrolled for the group. Average looking, average build, jet black hair with what appeared to be only one eyebrow which extended clear across his forehead. His partner was the same height and build, and sported a very black eye, with a bandage over the bridge of his nose. I could tell he was normally a very nice looking guy.

They took a seat immediately, nodding to the other members of the group.

“Carl, Jay,” Oaks said by acknowledgment, “glad you could make it. I'd like you to meet Dick and Jonathan, our new members.” The four of us half-rose, far enough to reach across the circle to exchange handshakes, then sat back down.

“You want to get some coffee before we start?” Oaks asked the new arrivals, who shook their heads in unison. “Okay, why don't we start by having Dick and Jonathan tell us a little about themselves?”

*

We'd roughly gone over our “story” on the drive over, and it was basically the same as we'd told Oaks when we first met him. We stressed our realization that our relationship was so new we were having a really rough time of it, and several of the other members related their own stories of when they'd first started out and how they dealt with the fact of one of the partners being alcoholic and the other not. I was a little surprised at how well they appear to have adjusted to their situations.

When Oaks asked if anyone had anything particular they wanted to address, it wasn't surprising that Carl jumped in to talk about Jay's having fallen off the wagon (“Again!” he added contemptuously) and gotten himself beaten up. Jay just sat there, looking crestfallen. It was obvious that Carl was trying to control his anger and frustration but not doing a very good job of it.

Victor suggested that Carl start going back to Al-Anon meetings, which took Carl off on another tangent denouncing Al-Anon as a total waste of time. Just about everyone got involved in the pros and cons, and somebody asked me if I went. I admitted I didn't, and both Victor and Frank urged me to try it. Exactly what Al-Anon was supposed to do or how it worked was a mystery to me, so I found the discussion pretty interesting. Obviously, there was a lot about the subject of alcoholism I didn't know.

*

Though neither Jonathan nor I said very much, actually, the session went by with surprising speed. In the car on the way home we talked about the evening and compared notes on our impressions of Oaks and the group's members. Oaks, as a good group leader is wont to do, seemed to know when to talk and when not to: while it was clear he was guiding the discussions, it was done very subtly and minimally. We were both impressed by him.

Two of the group's members—Andy and John—had not shown up, which from what Bradshaw and Kemper had said about the casual nature of the group, was apparently not unusual. As for the others, they seemed like nice, reasonably well-adjusted guys (considering the circumstances), and I really wouldn't have been able to tell, other than with Carl and Jay, who was the alcoholic and who wasn't unless they specifically referred to it. When I mentioned this to Jonathan he gave me a very soft and sweet smile.

“Maybe we can ask them to wear signs next time.”

I felt like a total idiot.

We both agreed that the receptionist, Nowell, was a bit of a puzzle, though more so to me than to Jonathan. “Well, at least he smiled at me,” Jonathan said. I hadn't noticed that. Other than the fact that he was, as my crotch had pointed out, a very attractive guy, he'd struck me as being not unfriendly, but not much of anything else, either. I couldn't even tell for sure if he was gay or not, and I suddenly realized that fact alone probably was at the base of my problem with him. I pride myself on being able to spot a “family member” from sixty paces.

The one thing I was sure of was that this was going to be a long, drawn out process, and I wasn't quite sure it would be worth it. It might be even less than not much of a lead, but it was all I had.

*

I thought of something T/T had said at Steamroller Junction when he was telling us about Charles/Charlene Whitaker. What was it, again? Oh, yes:
“Mona and I finally talked her into seeing a shrink to work it out, and she did—for one whole session.
Then a week later I got a call from Mona sayin' Charlene had just up and disappeared.”

Why these things ring bells in me I've never understood—but they've proven over the years to have enough value that I pay attention to them. Of course having a criminal charge for three deaths hanging over one's head just might, as Marty Gresham had noted, have provided an incentive for him to consider disappearing. But somehow I doubted it.

So if Whitaker went to the trouble of seeing a “shrink” as T/T put it, why would he only have gone to one session? And in a town this big, there are quite a number of psychiatrists and psychologists to choose from. But being gay, chances are Charles/Charlene would have sought out someone gay, which limited the field considerably.

Which leads us to Brian Oaks.

Oh, come on, now,
my mind voice said:
You're going to pull your shoulder out of its socket trying to make a reach that far!