Light Before Day (10 page)

The guard asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I declined. He left me to study the wall of bookshelves. Wiltons novels were not on prominent display. Instead I found texts on criminal profiling, practical guides to homicide investigation, and probably every piece of true-crime writing ever published.

A toilet flushed. I heard a strange scraping sound against the carpet.

The bird that waddled out of the bathroom stood about half a foot off the carpet. Its white feathers were stained yellow at the tips, and there was a metal band around its right leg. The bird and I stared at each other for a few seconds; then it raised its crown of pink feathers and let out a scream that curled the hair on my ass.

James Wilton emerged from the bathroom without glancing in my direction. His mahogany cane was topped with a chunky silver stallions head. He transferred it from one hand to the other and finished zipping up his khaki shorts. He wore a dark blue Hawaiian shirt with dancing red fish all over it, and his chicken legs were dusted with wiry brown hair. His picture had rendered him accurately, except for the moist sheen in his big blue eyes and the scars that clung to the inside of his right leg like strands of wet toilet paper.

"This is Archer," he said, his eyes on the bird. "Don't get any screwy ideas. I can't shake the son of a bitch. You Adam Murphy?"

I nodded, just so he would have to make eye contact.

"You're homosexual," he said flatly.

"How could you tell?"

"Your skin looks like margarine, and your pants are so tight I feel like congratulating the blood that can get to your ass." He eased himself down into his desk chair and gestured for me to do the same in one of the Eames chairs in front of the wall of books. "You're a good writer," he said.

"How could you tell?"

He opened a desk drawer and dropped several back issues of
Glitz
magazine on his desk.

"Shit," I whispered.

"I especially liked the one about the cologne that's supposedly made from real bull testosterone. You made me believe it for a second. That's talent. A lot of great journalists can't write advertising copy."

I just stared at him. He slouched back in his chair, pursed his lips, and studied me.

"Who died?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"You're wearing your grief, little man. You just don't know it. Your jaw's so tight it looks like you're about to take a bite out of the wall. Any sudden movement and your eyes turn to saucers."

"What am I doing here, Mr. Wilton?"

"Beats me," he said. "Maybe you're sick of trying to spin four hundred words out of a new brand of men's underwear that has a zipper on the side."

"And maybe you're looking for another
Blood and Flowers."

His eyes widened slightly. I had scored a direct hit. "You are here, Mr. Murphy, because your friend Rod Peters says you're onto something big and you're painfully out of your depth.

Evidenced by the fact that last night you beat the shit out of your primary subject." He saw that I was sitting very still. "He also said that in barely twenty-four hours' time you uncovered something significant enough to get you fired. Feel like telling me what it was?"

"No."

He gave me a slight smile and pulled at the skin on his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"Why? You think I'm going to steal it?"

"Like I said, I think you're looking for another
Blood and Flowers."

"How'd you learn how to protect yourself so well?" he asked.

"I was raised by a drunk."

"Is that so?" he asked. "Who won?"

"I think you invited me up here because you thought I would be starstruck," I said quickly.

"When you saw that wasn't the case, you tried to goad me with some homophobic remarks so I would try to prove myself by telling you what I've found out."

"That's a fairly damning accusation, son," he said, as if it were anything but.

"Is it true?"

"Are you calling my genuine concern for your circulation homophobia?"

I glared at him. He smiled back at me for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. "Your friend Rod Peters said that if it wasn't for your dipshit boss at
Glitz,
you would have broken three major investigative stories by now and would probably be a staff writer at a better magazine. He said when you're onto something, you stay on it until it socks you in the jaw."

Rod had never said these words to me. I felt my face flush and I broke eye contact with Wilton for the first time since I had sat down.

"Sounds like things got a little scary on this one, though," Wilton said. "You ready to chicken out?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"Tough shit," he said evenly. "Your temper made that decision for you when you beat the shit out of this guy who got you fired. You're part of the story now, and that means you've got no choice but to drop it."

"So you can pick it up?" I asked.

"I'm starting to get the feeling that you don't trust an older man unless he wants to sleep with you," he said. "This has been a job interview, little man. To be honest, I'm not quite sure how it's going."

"A job doing what?"

"I need an assistant," he said. "Based on what Rod told me, I thought hiring you would be like hiring a fashion designer to do my laundry. Now I'm not so sure." He saw the look of surprise on my face and allowed me a wan smile. "You're mouthy. Mouthy and defiant. That's not the same thing as confident and adult. You stick around here, and that will be just one of the distinctions I'll remind you of every day."

"What would your assistant have to do?" I asked meekly.

"Who cares?" he snapped. "I'm a best-selling novelist. People get arrested trying to climb over my front gate. You're real low on gratitude, hot pants."

"Last week a marine helicopter pilot named Daniel Brady came to West Hollywood in the company of a man named Scott Koffler. Koffler furnishes underage boys with fake names and fake IDs and then sets them up with wealthy men. Sometimes the boy gets a supporting role in a feature out of the deal."

Jimmy's face lost some of its rosy color.

"How much?" I asked.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"How much do you plan on paying your assistant?"

He cleared his throat and straightened. "Twenty-five dollars an hour. Six days a week. Nine to seven. I'm aware that's high, so don't launch into a Gloria Gaynor song when I ask you to get me my shoes."

"I accept," I said. "Can I see something in writing?"

He opened a desk drawer and removed a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it and saw the words CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT written across the top. Below, there was a single line of text: "I promise to keep my big fat mouth shut about all the crazy shit that goes on at James Wilton's house. Signed:

" I signed my name and handed it back to him.

He studied my signature, then gestured for me to continue with my story.

"While they were riding around West Hollywood, Koffler tried to get Brady to have sex with a friend of mine in the backseat of his car. Brady flipped out and tossed the guy into the middle of the street. On Friday afternoon, it looks like Brady flipped out a second time and flew his helicopter right into the Pacific Ocean. He had been married for three years."

Jimmy sat forward, picked up a pen, and began jotting notes down on the side of my pop quiz. I waited patiently for his response.

"You hungry?" he asked me.

Jimmy's car was a black Cadillac Seville with windows tinted the color of midnight at sea. He told me he was able to drive, but he would have to use his left foot, so I took the keys out of his hand and got behind the wheel. The car had so much leather upholstery it could have doubled as a padded cell.

At Beverly Glen Canyon, he directed me into a strip mall that sat right at the spot where the canyon road became a twisting water slide shooting motorists down into Beverly Hills. The mall was a secluded town square for the residents of the hills above the West Side, and its parking lot was full of expensive SUVs and luxury sedans.

At a small Italian restaurant, the hostess seated us on a patio fenced in by hedges. Our fellow diners were all white women dressed in white drinking white wine.

"The food's good here," Wilton remarked.

"It's romantic, too."

"Shut up."

When I tried to order an iced tea, Jimmy demanded I get something that had sugar in it so that I would stop glowering at everything that made a sound. I gave the waitress a broad smile and said, "You should see what he's like when I don't have dinner ready on time."

Jimmy glowered at me as the waitress laughed all the way back to the kitchen. He instructed me to start at the beginning and I did. I omitted the specific words Koffler had used to send me over the edge.

"Your working theory was that one of Koffler's clients requested an audience with a hot marine, right?" he asked. I said yes. "You didn't like Koffler very much when you started, did you?" he asked. "It sounds like you don't like any of his wealthy clients very much either. Let me guess. You think moral bankruptcy is the price they pay for financial success and swimming pools full of cute young things."

"Something like that," I answered.

He nodded. "Is any of what I'm saying the reason you didn't stop to assume that maybe Daniel Brady was the client?"

"You think Daniel Brady wanted to sleep with one of Scott's kids?" I asked.

"I think that's where you should have started," he said. "The stunt with your buddy Nate—it sounds like Koffler had something to prove to this guy Brady. That he was powerful. That he could manipulate pretty boys into doing his bidding. That implies that Koffler was supposed to give Brady a lot more than a nice drive." He let me absorb this. When I didn't speak up, he continued. "You had the guts to peel back the layers of the world you live in, and I admire that, little man. The problem was, you picked your hero and your villain from the get-go. Brady was the victimized closet case, Koffler the devious pedophile. I'm a little surprised, to be frank."

"Why?"

"Daniel Brady threw your friend into the middle of traffic," he said. "Not Scott Koffler."

I felt my face get hot. He had exposed my bias and laid it on the table between us.

"Brady was stationed at Pendleton, right?" I nodded. "You should have gone after him first.

You were dealing with a closeted marine prone to violent outbursts around his sexuality. You should have hit the bars down in San Diego. Maybe Brady made a similar appearance there and left some wreckage. If he had, you could have given it to Scott Koffler."

"Why on earth would I
give
it to Scott Koffler?"

"Because then you allow Koffler the chance to play the victim," he said. "You tell him that you've been made aware he was traveling in the company of a violent, self-hating closet case.

You express concern for his well-being. And you give him the chance to clear the air about a guy who probably ruined his night."

Every defensive bone in my body went dry. He saw how much his analysis had affected me and continued. "Now let's look at what you
did
do. You went out to Scott Koffler's house and found him with two underage boys. But you didn't pay one whit of attention to either one of them, and when Koffler offered you a drink you didn't accept. Instead, you opened the interview by shoving a picture of Daniel Brady in his face."

He picked up his fork and tapped it on the table to accentuate each point. "You accept the drink. You ask Koffler to join you. He tells you he's a guardian angel to those boys, and you express nothing but admiration for his charity work. You ask him how he does it and how he finds the time. You ask to meet the boys, and you play the perfect gentleman. If need be, you give the subtle impression that you're interested in getting to know one of them on a more intimate basis.

"That gets Koffler talking about what you'd have to do to sleep with them. Privately you give those boys your phone number in case one of them needs a ride home—in case one of them happens to be around when Koffler throws a fit because his buddy Brady offed himself and the kid needs someone to talk to about it."

He let his words sink in.
"This
is investigative journalism, little man. You had a huge advantage going for you and you blew it. A guy you knew socially might have been involved in the deaths of four marines. You could have been the guy's friend and walked away with something before he even knew he'd given it to you. Instead, you started a pissing contest that got you fired."

"In an article I couldn't use something Koffler told me in confidence," I protested.

"Of course not," he countered. "But it opens the door for something you can use. This was a huge story, little man, and you went after it like you were going to file the next day."

The waitress came to take our orders and I heard myself ask for the veal. Jimmy ordered without taking his eyes off me, and I wondered if he was waiting for me to fall apart under pressure.

"You still here?" he asked in a low voice.

"I'm trying to remind myself of something," I said.

"What?"

"That being humbled isn't the same thing as being humiliated," I said. "Maybe if I let myself get humbled a little more often, I won't end up being humiliated so much."

His expression softened, but I got the sense that he was sitting on a smart remark. "You want to really be humbled?" he asked. "Let me put your buddy Nate in touch with a friend at the
LA
Times."

My stomach went cold. He smiled a little. "No thanks," I said.

"Fine," he said. "But you won't be working on this one while you're on my watch. The Marine Corps will be launching an investigation of its own, which means if you go back to doing what you were doing, you'll probably end up in a military prison. That might be a fantasy of yours, but I need someone to get me coffee."

I was already well aware that I would have to let go of the Daniel Brady story, but I still didn't like hearing someone else say it. When I didn't protest, I realized that James Wilton and I might have some kind of future together.