Spider Season (5 page)

“They know me here,” Conroy said. “We won’t lose our reservation.”

The restaurant, which Conroy had chosen, was a comfortable place, with lots of dark wood, unvarnished wrought iron, and the original white tile on the floor, complete with old cracks that had probably been underfoot for a century or more. It had what the guidebooks refer to as ambience and character, the kind carefully preserved for people with money who want to pretend that their lives are less orderly and sanitized than they really are. It was on the ground floor of a vintage building recently renovated as part of the ambitious revitalization of the downtown area, which meant luxury loft and penthouse apartments above and trendy cafés, clubs, and galleries at street level, the city’s latest Mecca for credit card bohemians.

A block west of the restaurant, Broadway was still ground zero for downtown Latino shopping and culture. It was a vibrant, cacophonous mix of working-class people and garish merchandise, but the wealthy developers were gradually buying up and renovating the old buildings and the Latino businesses were living on borrowed time. Most of the
vendedores
had disappeared in a crackdown to clean up and beautify the area, replaced by elegant restaurants where “
haute
dogs” went for fifteen bucks and steaks for three times that, soup or salad not included. Now that affluent whites were moving in, police patrols had visibly increased, and civic leaders had decided it was finally time to sweep away the hundreds of homeless people who slept on skid-row sidewalks every night. Little by little, the riffraff and the hardworking poor were being pushed farther east or into other low-rent communities, where gentrification hadn’t yet taken hold.

“We’ll be sitting outside,” Conroy announced. “I smoke.” She glanced at Zeitler. “Were you leaving soon? Not to be rude, but I don’t conduct interviews with publicists hovering about.”

“I told Judith she could sit in on this first meeting,” I said.

“I don’t recall being consulted,” Conroy said.

“Then I’ll take the blame. Anyway, she’s my ride home, so she stays.”

“I can drive you home, Justice.”

“Thanks, but I don’t ride with intoxicated drivers.”

Conroy showed us a steely smile. “Then you owe me two more interviews instead of one. Agreed?”

Zeitler glanced at me plaintively.

“I can live with that,” I said.

Conroy’s smile was transformed into one of triumph. She emptied her glass and signaled the hostess. While we followed, Conroy headed through a side door to a string of tables along the sidewalk, protected by a metal railing and potted foliage. Dusk had settled over Main Street, which was relatively quiet, but we could still hear the traffic surging like a huge beast to the west, where the corporate towers rose up nearer the freeway. It occurred to me that the big
Los Angeles Times
building was only a few blocks away, to the north, and I suddenly realized why Conroy had chosen to meet here. We were dining in the shadow of the most influential newspaper on the West Coast, where I’d begun to make my mark as a reporter before crashing so spectacularly only seven years later, at the age of thirty-two.

“I imagine this neighborhood has a familiar feeling,” Conroy said, as if it had just occurred to her. “These were your stomping grounds for a few years, weren’t they?”

“And very nearly yours,” I said, “if memory serves.”

Our eyes met across the table.

“Memory can be a tricky devil, can’t it?” She paused, then hit me with the zinger. “I imagine you discovered that while writing your book.”

“Are we skipping the softball questions,” I asked, “and going straight for the jugular?”

“Why don’t we order first?” Zeitler said helpfully.

“I recommend the rib eye, with a good cabernet,” Conroy said. “At least for those with some hair on their chest.”

Zeitler, who was always on a diet, selected an appetizer of crab cakes on a bed of spring greens, with a bottle of Pellegrino water. I ordered the pan-seared salmon.

“A glass of pinot noir would go nicely with that,” Conroy said.

I ignored it and told the waitress to bring a large bottle of the fancy water and that Zeitler and I would share it. Conroy chose the steak, cooked blood rare, and a half bottle of cabernet to wash it down. When the waitress was gone, Conroy lit a cigarette and took a hit before she placed a pint-sized audio recorder on the table with the external microphone pointed in my direction.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” I said.

She dropped her first question like a bomb.

“Now that your book’s written and published, do you feel less burdened by the guilt of what you did? Or is that something that never goes away?”

“I assume you’re referring to the Pulitzer business.”

“We can start there.”

“With diligent reporters like you around, Cathryn, I doubt that I’ll ever be allowed a complete reprieve.”

“You aren’t suggesting that we abdicate our responsibility to get at the truth, are you?”

“Why don’t you define truth for me, from the perspective of someone who specializes in hatchet jobs?”

“Oh, look,” Zeitler said brightly. “Here come the drinks!”

And so it went. Conroy and I sparred with each other, just short of drawing blood, while Zeitler darted in now and then like a referee, determined to ward off any low blows. Finally, her steak half-eaten but her wine gone, Conroy pushed back her chair and abruptly stood.

“Enough of this,” she said, grabbing her cigarettes, recorder, and purse. “Next time, no publicist. Understood?”

I smiled benignly. “Whatever you say, Cathryn.”

She dabbed at her mouth with a cloth napkin, imprinting it with red lipstick before tossing it rudely to the table. “I’ll leave you to handle the check.”

“Of course,” Zeitler said. “Our treat!”

When she was gone, Zeitler said perkily, “It’s always good to get the first one out of the way, don’t you think?”

“This was your idea, Judith. I won’t take the blame on this one.”

“My crab cakes were quite good. How was your fish?”

I gave her a look and raised my hand for the check.

Out on the sidewalk, a well-groomed, white-haired gentleman in expensive clothes was walking a small dog. He eyed a good-looking Hispanic boy standing nearby under a street lamp. The kid was slim and brown, with a soft, dark mustache that had probably never seen a razor. The older man stopped to chat and then they walked down the block, turning into an elegant building with a uniformed security guard out front. Along the gutter, a disheveled-looking woman whose age was masked by grime pushed a shopping cart in our direction, the wheels clattering along the asphalt. The cart was piled high and teetering with all kinds of trashy castoffs. She stared straight ahead as she passed, mumbling to herself, not ten feet from where we sat.

Zeitler eyed Conroy’s abandoned plate. “Would you mind if I asked for a doggy bag? My Pomeranian loves rib eye.”

“By all means,” I said. “No one likes to see good steak go to waste.”

SIX

Friday came and went without a new hate message in the mailbox, but the harassment resumed on Saturday. This time, the postcard was addressed to
Benjamin Poz Justice.

I turned it over and scanned the words:

AIDS was made for the likes, or hates, of you. I realize your dead lover boy, Jacques, probably didn’t deserve it like you do. But we all have to die sometime, don’t we? (Some hopefully sooner than others!) Anyway, he’s better off without you. See you in hell, faggot.

The first time I’d read the hate mail mentioning Jacques, I’d felt tremulous and sick, like someone in the grip of a bad chill. Now I trembled with rage. The problem was that my anger had nowhere to go. I didn’t know the name of the sender, or why he was doing this—if indeed it was a man—or where I might find him. Which was probably a good thing, given what I might have done if I’d found him at that moment.

“Benjamin, what is it? What’s the matter?”

Maurice had come from the house, apparently concerned over the look on my face. I didn’t answer right away, just kept staring at the ugly words, trying to make sense of the whole thing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to involve Maurice in it; he had enough to worry about with Fred. But Maurice moved closer, raising his voice sharply.

“Benjamin, I asked you a question.”

I looked up to see him standing with his hands on his hips, colorful bracelets decorating each of his narrow wrists, his eyes hawkish under their white crowns. I knew there was no putting him off.

“I’ve been targeted with some strange mail.” I described the contents of the other messages and handed him the new one. “I don’t know who’s behind it. This is the third one.”

As he scanned the scurrilous lines, his mouth fell open. When he’d finished, quiet outrage crept across his face and tears brimmed in his eyes.

“Who could be doing this? To say these kinds of things about Jacques, a young man who never harmed so much as a fly. And to address you in such a hurtful manner. I’m so sorry, Benjamin.”

“It beats getting kicked in the teeth.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I laughed a little. “No.”

He studied the message again.

“Do you really think this person—?”

“Deliberately infected Jacques? Jacques died eighteen years ago, so he would have been infected years before that. Given the time frame, and the fact that this fellow’s still alive, makes it highly improbable. Still, it’s theoretically possible. There are people who have lived well over twenty years with the disease.”

“Or he could just be a very twisted individual,” Maurice suggested, “writing these things to needle you. But why?”

I shrugged, clueless. Maurice turned the postcard over to study the printing on the front, looking thoughtful.

“Benjamin, I believe I might have seen this handwriting before.”

“Seriously?”

He looked up, nodding. “Among your old documents and papers, the ones I helped organize when you were writing your book. There was a letter—I believe it was written eighteen years ago, or very nearly, not long after your problem at the newspaper.”

“Why would you remember something like that?”

“The letter itself was typewritten, but the signature at the end was big and grandiose, just like this handwriting. I particularly recall the letter
J
in the name—it was drawn just like the
J
in your name on this postcard, with the same flourish. I only glanced at it—I don’t recall the contents. But the signature was quite outlandish, the mark of someone very taken with himself.”

“Frankly, when I was writing the book, I didn’t pay much attention to the personal correspondence. There was so much other material to go through.”

“Unless you’ve thrown things out, it should still be there.”

“I put it all back in the garage, in the same file boxes.”

Maurice placed a hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to know who’s been writing these notes to you? Would that be useful?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“And if you found out, what then?”

“Confront him, I suppose.” I smiled mildly. “Suggest that he stop.”

“You could file a complaint with the authorities. It’s clearly harassment, which is against the law. And I wouldn’t be surprised if sending hate speech like this through the U.S. mail is a federal offense.” He handed the postcard back to me. “As soon as I can find the time, I’ll begin digging for it.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

He waved that away as if it were a pesky insect, causing his big bracelets to jangle.

“In the meantime,” he said, “I want you to forget all about these nasty notes you’ve been receiving. You have a reading at A Different Light tonight and a party afterward back here at the house. The world’s full of unhappy people who have nothing better to do than make others as miserable as they are. You mustn’t let them get to you, dearest.”

*   *   *

At a quarter past seven, while Fred stayed behind to welcome early arrivals for the party, Maurice and I strolled down the hill to A Different Light. Out front, volunteers were registering sympathetic voters for the November election, when the anti-gay marriage amendment would be a crucial issue for the community.

The bookstore was modest in size, set among the ubiquitous clubs and cafés along Santa Monica Boulevard, where untold millions were spent on alcohol and gayety but relatively few dollars for books that explored gay history, politics, and culture. A Different Light still sold books, but more and more of its display space seemed devoted to CDs, sexy magazines, and rainbow tchotchkes and less and less to gay literature, as the store struggled to survive the onslaught of the discount chains and online booksellers.

Not surprisingly, Maurice knew the manager personally, and he’d urged her to give my memoir a featured spot in one of the store’s two windows. My book—
Deep Background: The True Story of a Disgraced Journalist and the Pulitzer Scandal That Destroyed Him
—was prominently positioned among titles by authors far more notable and deserving than I: Edmund White, Michael Cunningham, Alison Bechdel, Armistead Maupin, Michelle Tea, Eloise Klein Healy, Bernard Cooper, Manuel Muñoz, Katherine V. Forrest, Mark Doty, Radclyffe, Adrienne Rich, Clive Barker, Christopher Bram. It pleased me to see my book among those of such luminaries, although I felt a bit like a beggar who’d sneaked into a fancy dinner party.

“Benjamin, look at the crowd!”

As Maurice and I stepped inside, I was stunned to see a packed house. Billy Avarathar, the events coordinator with the soulful dark eyes and V-shaped torso, had pushed aside racks and display tables and was setting up more chairs to accommodate the overflow.

“This is your doing,” I told Maurice gratefully. “You must have invited everybody in your phone book. Warned them they’d better show up or else.”

“Nonsense, Benjamin! They’ve come because they want to hear your story. With this book, you have a chance to explain things, and to put the problems of the past behind you.”

I slipped my arm around his narrow shoulders and drew him close. “It’s been a long road to this point, Maurice. Without your support, I’m not sure I’d still be around.”