The Dream Ender (13 page)

“You’re welcome to bring him along,” Jared said. “I know Jake would like to see him.” Then he paused. “Unless you’d rather not.”

Sometimes what isn’t said conveys a lot more than what is. I knew what the “unless you’d rather not” meant, and I made a giant leap of faith in assuming Jonathan would agree when I replied, “Sure, if you think Jake’s up to dealing with a five-year-old.”

“He’ll manage,” he said. “About seven thirty, then?”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Give our best to Jake.”

When we’d exchanged our good-byes and hung up, I relayed our conversation to Jonathan, and I could see concern on his face. I knew he wanted to say something but was hesitant to do so.

“What?” I asked.

He sighed and shook his head. “I’m really ashamed of myself for even saying this, but I wish we had had a chance to talk about it before you said we’d bring Joshua. I mean, I understand why you said it, but…do you really think we should take him? There’s so much nobody knows about AIDS yet, and Joshua is only five years old, and we’ve got to protect him and…” His expression changed from concern to anguish as he tried to deal with his feelings.

I moved over to him and hugged him.

“I know you’re concerned, babe—so am I. It’s totally natural. But we’re entering into a whole new world now, and we can’t shut ourselves or Joshua off from it, much as we might like to. If I thought there was any real danger—hell, if Jared thought there was any danger, he never would have asked. Jake’s life has just changed forever, and he’ll need his friends now more than ever. The very least we can do is not treat him any differently than we always have.”

Jonathan clasped his hands behind the small of my back and pulled me closer.

“You’re right, of course,” he said, then sighed. “It’s just…”

“I know,” I said, and kissed him on the bridge of his nose.

At that point, Joshua, who had been busy with one of his toys, came running over.

“Hey, where’s my hug?” he demanded.

We showed him.

*

Monday evening, we decided to save a little time by going out to one of the 397 or so local Cap’n Rooney’s Fish Shack franchises—each one of them a personal favorite of Joshua’s because of the large fish tank they all had in the center of the dining area. We arrived at Jake’s right on time, having explained to Joshua that Uncle Jake was kind of tired from working hard so he—Joshua—should refrain from instigating their usual roughhousing and using Jake as his personal Mt. Everest.

Jonathan’s comment on the way over that we’d never been to Jake’s apartment caught me rather by surprise when I realized he was right. Not that it mattered, of course; it had just worked out that way.

Jake lived in a very nice neighborhood, and his apartment was on the ground floor of a newer four-story building. He met us at the door looking tired but otherwise pretty much usual Jake. Our cautions to Joshua went right out the window when Jake scooped him up and tossed him in the air, to Joshua’s delight; but I noted that rather than tossing him several times as he normally did, he set him down after the first one.

“You’re getting to be too big a boy to throw around, Joshua,” he said with a smile.

“No, I’m not,” Joshua objected.

Jake tousled his head. “Well, that’s one of the prices you have to pay for growing up,” he said.

Turning to Jonathan and me, he gave us both a hug. “Jared’s on coffee duty in the kitchen,” he said. “I’ve sort of given up on the booze for a while. But I can make you a Manhattan if you want, Dick, or get you a beer.”

I shook my head as we moved into the living room. “Coffee’ll be fine,” I said.

The apartment was small but very comfortable, and I was mildly surprised but pleased to see that Jake had several framed photos of himself and Jared, including one of the five of us we’d taken at a picnic right after Joshua had come to us. At one end of the room I noticed a large lighted display cabinet with bevel-glassed doors, behind which were mounted five or six what I assumed to be hunting rifles, though they looked a little strange. Jake had said he collected them.

Joshua, of course, was immediately drawn to it and stood staring up at the highly polished stocks and gleaming barrels.

“Are you a cowboy, Uncle Jake?” he asked eagerly, obviously associating the guns with his favorite Westerns on TV. “Where’s your horse?”

Jared entered the room at that point and grinned at Joshua, who ran over for a hug.

“That’d be me,” Jared said.

“You’re not a horse!” Joshua declared. “You’re silly!”

“Well, Uncle Jake works me like one,” Jared replied.

“Uh-huh,” Jake said.

“Interesting collection,” I said, knowing next to nothing about rifles. “Which one’s your new one?”

Jake laughed. “Those are all antiques,” he said. “I keep the two newer ones locked away in the bedroom.”

We all sat down, and I was feeling mildly uncomfortable, wondering how we were going to dance around the 900-pound gorilla in the room. Luckily, that issue was resolved when Jake said, “So, Jared told you?”

Neither Jonathan nor I said anything, just nodded.

“It’s going to be quite an adjustment,” Jake said matter-of-factly. “Thank God for Stan—he’s going to walk me through it. Not very many people are lucky enough to have one of the top immunologists in the country as a brother. Jared and I were just going over some of the new rules before you got here. No more fifteen-hour workdays, a lot more delegation of the work itself. Stan’s working out a diet for me, which I’m sure I’ll probably hate, figuring out which vitamins and supplements I should start on to help boost my immune system—that sort of thing.”

Jonathan was staring at him. “You’re incredible!” he said. “I could never take all this so calmly.”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t have much of an alternative, really. I’ve always liked challenges, and this is just another one. A big one, I’ll admit, but…

“What I’m not going to do is let it take over my life. And the fact that you guys are here—and that you weren’t afraid to bring Joshua…” He paused a second and gave a small smile. “…or that you brought him anyway, means a hell of a lot and will make it a little easier. I’ll have to tell the rest of the gang, and I hope they’ll take it as well as you have.”

“You know they will,” I said.

The tension eased, and the conversation moved on to other things.

When Joshua began to get fidgety, Jared got up and said, “Come on, Joshua. We’ll go get the coffee, and I see somebody left us a cherry pie. You can help me cut it—but I don’t suppose you’re hungry after dinner, are you?”

Joshua immediately hopped off the sofa and headed for the kitchen. “Yes, I am!”

*

Wednesday’s work mail brought a check from Carl Brewer—no note, just the check with “Thanks” written on the memo line in the lower left-hand corner.

I’d really made a concerted effort, after our Monday visit with Jake and Jared, to put this AIDS thing out of my mind as much as I could. But every morning, while driving to work, I had to pass the construction site of the new Century Tower office complex and, inevitably, was reminded Cal Hysong worked there. I’d just as soon forget about Cal Hysong.

That, of course, would remind me of Jared’s proposed meeting of Male Call regulars with every right to have a grudge against Hysong. Jared hadn’t said any more about it, and if he’d discarded the idea, as I hoped he had, I didn’t want to replant it by asking him about it.

Thursday evening we got calls from both Phil and Tim and Bob and Mario. Jake had called them to give them the news about his status. They’d all done their best to hide their shock and concern and to go along completely with Jake’s expressed confidence in Stan’s ability to protect him.

Whether Jake believed it himself was another matter. The little dances that humans go through in trying to protect and support their friends is one of our stranger and more admirable qualities.

Because we owed Tim and Phil a dinner, we invited them over Friday night and they readily accepted. It was rather like Joshua’s seeking reassurance from Jonathan and me the way our friends sought reassurance from one another. Reassurance of exactly what we probably could not say.

*

So, all went relatively well until I sat down at the office the following Tuesday morning to read the paper and my eye went directly to an article on the bottom half of page one:

Worker Dies in Fall

The fall was from the under-construction Century Tower, and the worker, it turned out, was one Cal Hysong.

I wasn’t quite sure what my reaction was—the fleeting shadow of sorrow that accompanies the news of any death; relief that Jared would not need to have that meeting he talked about, which could not have led to anything positive; a certain sense of vindication in knowing that if it had been Cal Hysong deliberately spreading AIDS to others he had gotten his comeuppance and would not be the ender of anyone else’s dreams.

The article went on to say he had been working on a beam on the twelfth floor of the tower, had not been wearing his safety harness, and had somehow fallen. My quick thought that it might have been suicide was only mildly comforting.

But none of it mattered. He was dead, and the world would move on without him.

I was tempted to call Jake but thought better of it. What would be the point? He’d probably see it on the evening news.

Tim called that evening right after dinner, while Jonathan and Joshua were busy feeding the fish.

“You saw the news on Cal Hysong?” he asked.

We had discussed Hysong at length on Friday.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I hate to see anyone die, but in his case, I’m almost willing to make an exception. Did you work on him?”

“That’s one of the perks in having achieved my exalted station at the coroner’s office,” he said. “I can occasionally ask to work on a case that interests me.”

“And Hysong interested you?”

“In a way, yes. And I thought I’d let you know, just between us, that you were right—he had Karposi’s sarcoma, and apparently for some time, though it’s hard to tell. But that’s not the interesting part.”

“Oh? What is?”

“That the fall killed him, but he had help.”

He had me.

“Help? Somebody pushed him?”

“Indirectly. He was shot.”

Chapter 13

“He was shot? Off an I-beam twelve stories off the ground?”

“Yep. We almost missed it—we were looking for evidence of a stroke or embolism as cause of death and found the bullet in his chest. Came as quite a surprise.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “So, I don’t suppose there’s much chance of it being an accident.”

“I suppose it could have been a freak accident involving someone just firing a gun into the air. The bullet was a .38 calibre, and they’re doing a match to see exactly what kind of gun was used, but from what I’ve heard about Cal Hysong, I’d say it’s a little unlikely it was an accident. But that’s not our job to say. We just report what we find. What happens then is out of our hands.”

“Well,” I said, “at least a lot of guys can sleep easier knowing there’s one less going around spreading AIDS.”

Tim sighed. “I just wish I could be more confident he wasn’t the only one spreading it deliberately.”

“Jeez, Tim! That’s a terrible thing to think.”

“I know, but my job always reminds me what one human being is willing to do to another. I wish it weren’t so, but that damned reality always gets in the way of what we’d like to believe.”

I knew he was right, of course, and, not for the first time, I did not envy him his job.

I waited until after Story Time, and after Joshua was asleep to tell Jonathan what Tim had said, though when he said, “Well, at least it’s over,” I left out the part about Hysong’s probably not being the first or the last to deliberately spread the disease.

“Are you going to call Jared and Jake?” he asked.

“Not tonight,” I said. “It’s getting late. It can wait until tomorrow.”

It was not until the words came out of my mouth that I realized I had a reason other than the hour.

Hysong had been killed, obviously, as a result of Brewer’s leaking Cal’s name to the rumor mills. And the killer was undoubtedly someone Hysong had infected, or someone seeking revenge on behalf of a victim. And I could not avoid the likelihood that Hysong had infected Jake and that both he and Jared had to be included in the list of those potentially out to seek revenge.

I was both shocked and disgusted with myself that I could even think either Jared or Jake could have been involved, but as Tim so rightly put it, “that damned reality always gets in the way of what we’d like to believe.”

I also couldn’t help wondering if Jared had called that meeting of Male Call regulars he’d talked about and not invited me. He certainly wasn’t under any obligation to do so, but I was curious and thought I just might ask.

I glanced at the clock beside the bed to see it was 12:43. I assumed Jonathan had been asleep a long time before, so I was startled when I felt his hand slide over my chest, and to hear him say, “Don’t worry. They didn’t do it.”

I turned to face him. “What are you doing still awake?”

“I was waiting for you to fall asleep first,” he replied. “I know you’re worried.”

I didn’t even try to deny it. “I can’t help it,” I said. “I know they couldn’t have been involved, but I know damned well if there is much of an investigation into this, they’ll be on the list. And they don’t need to be hassled any more than they’ve already been. Especially Jake!”