“What did you tell him?”
“That you were having some problems, but I wasn’t quite sure what they were.”
“He suggested you find a way to get us together.”
“No, that’s not it. Oree doesn’t know you’re coming. If you have to blame someone, Benjamin, lay it on me.”
“Do I still have to pay for lunch?”
“Of course you do.”
“OK, I’ll blame you, then.”
She gave me one of her looks, but a smile came with it, and I climbed out of the Porsche feeling less angry but still on edge. She put the top up, then locked the car and set the alarm, and we walked around the corner to Degnan Boulevard. The sound of big drums reverberated from inside the funky World Stage as we passed. The Elephant Walk was next door, a charming restaurant with courtly waiters, linen tablecloths, and a canopy that extended from the entrance out over the sidewalk.
I saw Oree seated at one of the window tables, then the surprise in his face as he saw me. He rose to his feet, looking much as he had when I’d met him the previous year: tall and lanky, impeccably attired, not quite as dark as Templeton but just as drop-dead gorgeous in his own way, with faintly Asian features visible in his arching cheekbones and narrow eyes, along with his more African looks. His head was still a cleanly shaven dome, but he’d grown a mustache and goatee since I’d last seen him, which added some age and more dignity to his handsome face. He continued to keep his eyes on me as I followed Templeton through the door and over to the table.
“Benjamin, it’s good to see you.”
He extended his big hand. We shook.
“Oree.”
Templeton threw up her hands like a happy hostess.
“Lunch is on Ben—he insisted.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“He scored a nice advance to ghostwrite a book.”
“Congratulations, Ben.”
I smiled mildly.
“Unfortunately, my partner’s now the ghost—we signed the contract yesterday morning, and today she’s in a drawer at the morgue.”
Templeton winced.
“Ben, Oree came for brunch, not gruesome shop talk.”
A waiter arrived, pulled out a chair for Templeton, and handed us menus after we were seated. Before the requisite tension could settle over the table, Oree said just the right words, with his characteristic diplomacy.
“On the contrary, I’m always interested in what you and Ben are up to. Tell me more about it, all the juicy details.”
And that was how the meal went, with remarkable ease, while Templeton and I related what little we knew about the strange death of Rod Preston’s daughter. If the conversation began to falter, Oree nudged us along with a curious comment or a new question, masterfully in control while he made it seem as if he was merely an accidental participant. I ordered the Nairobi blackened catfish and managed to get most of it down, while Templeton ate blackened shrimp over pasta with her usual gusto and Oree tried the Nyema ofe, a concoction of shrimp, scallops, turkey sausage, vegetables, and red potatoes, which he pronounced first-rate. As our plates were cleared and the coffee poured, I was talking about the biography written by Randall Capri that had first connected me with Charlotte Preston.
Oree gave me a funny look.
“You did say Randall Capri?”
“Don’t tell me you know him.”
Oree smiled widely.
“No, and from what you’ve told me, I don’t think I want to. But I did see his name last night. Capri was listed on the schedule for an author signing at Book Soup—tonight, as a matter of fact.”
“You were on the Sunset Strip last night?”
“A friend and I took in a show at the House of Blues, then we wandered down the boulevard to browse for books.”
“You’re seeing someone then?”
“I have a social life, Ben. It didn’t stop when you decided not to call anymore or to answer your phone.”
The tension we’d avoided all through lunch was finally with us, and now it was Templeton’s turn to deal with it.
“Maybe you should drop by Book Soup tonight, Benjamin. Purchase a copy of Capri’s new book.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Curiosity, maybe?”
“My curiosity died with Charlotte Preston.”
“Maybe you could buy a copy and skim through it for me, then, since I’ll be writing the follow-up on her suicide.”
“If that’s what it was.”
“You’ll buy a copy then? Have Capri sign it?”
“Why would I have Capri sign it?”
“So you can observe him, see what he’s like, maybe even talk to him for a moment. Who knows? Maybe his nasty book drove Charlotte to take her life.”
“If that’s what happened.”
She clapped excitedly.
“Exactly! So if it was something other than suicide, wouldn’t you want to know all you could about Randall Capri and what his involvement might be?”
“I don’t want to get messed up in Charlotte’s death, Templeton, any more than I already am. It’s bad enough I’ve got her little dog at home. You’re the reporter now. It’s your story all the way.”
“Of course, Benjamin. Which is why I was hoping you’d check Capri out, let me know what you think of him. Strictly for background, in case I need it.”
Our eyes were locked, and we both knew exactly what she was up to.
“I guess I could do that. For background, in case you need it.”
Templeton smiled, then glanced suddenly at her watch.
“Oh my gosh, it’s after one! I’ve got to get downtown, work the phones. I have to file a story for the morning edition.”
She turned toward Oree, all innocence and charm.
“Oree, could you be a sweetheart and run Ben home? I know it’s out of your way, but—”
“Sure, Alex. I’ll give Ben a ride.”
Her eyes moved in my direction, widening theatrically.
“The time just got away from me. What can I say?”
“Nothing very convincing at this point.”
She kissed me quickly on the cheek, then Oree the same way. She thanked me for lunch, told me to try to eat more, and dashed out. I watched through the windows as she hurried away in the direction of Forty-third Place, tall and shapely, turning heads. I redirected my attention to the table, Oree’s placid brown eyes were on mine.
“So here we are again.”
“Things are different now, though, aren’t they?”
“I’m not sure, Ben. You haven’t been communicating much the past year.”
“I needed some time by myself.”
“You never even called to tell me how your follow-up test went, after the first one came back inconclusive. Maybe I’m supposed to intuit the results from your silence.”
“Maybe I felt it was private.”
His voice was deep and strong, but also a little hurt.
“I thought we’d decided that’s what friends are for.”
The waiter appeared to warm our coffees and ask if there was anything else we needed.
“Just the check, please.”
He went away for a minute or two, and I asked Oree foolish questions to kill time, something about Templeton’s father, his career as a corporate lawyer, all the money he made, Templeton’s new car. Oree answered each question politely, until I’d run out. We sat in silence for a moment while he studied my face with his implacable eyes.
“Alexandra’s right, Ben. You should be eating more. You don’t look well.”
“I’ll try to remember that, when I’m not throwing up.”
“You’ve been sick then.”
“It’s probably just the flu that’s going around.”
The waiter came back and laid a brown leather check presenter on the table. I opened it, placed a hundred-dollar bill inside, told the waiter to keep the change. It was an exorbitant tip, but it freed me from having to sit there any longer, waiting for change and facing more of Oree’s questions and concern. I stood quickly.
“Shall we go?”
Before he could answer, I was already moving toward the door.
*
We listened to a new Cassandra Wilson CD on the ride home and didn’t speak a word. Oree pulled up in front of the house without shutting off the engine, but as I started to climb out, he reached for my wrist.
“I’m still at the same number, Ben. If there’s anything you need, even if it’s just to talk.”
“How have you been doing, Oree?”
“Fine. No problems.”
We were talking in AIDS speak, and he was letting me know that more than five years after testing positive himself, his health was still good.
“I’m sorry I disappeared the way I did, Oree. You deserved better.”
“Call me sometime. It’s no good trying to be alone with this.”
I got out and watched him pull away. Fred was painting the rails of the front porch, while Maurice pulled weeds and Mei-Ling sat on the small patch of lawn, her head laid sadly on her front paws. When she saw me she leaped up and came running, bounding around me like a love-starved puppy just rescued from the pound.
Maurice rose, brushing soil from his hands.
“Benjamin’s back, Fred!”
Fred grunted, waved his brush, went back to his work.
“How was lunch, my dear boy?”
“Trying.”
Maurice frowned.
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not really.”
He clucked his tongue.
“At least you’re out and about again; that’s the important thing.”
He invited me to join them for dinner that evening, but I begged off, using the book signing as an excuse. Maurice’s hands fluttered up like small birds rising.
“You’re going to investigate this awful Randall Capri person? I think that’s absolutely wonderful, Benjamin.”
“Why would that be wonderful, Maurice?”
“He sounds like a very nasty piece of work. If anybody can put him in his place, it’s you and Alexandra.”
“I’m just picking up the book for her.”
Maurice pressed his lips together somberly.
“Of course, just picking up the book.”
He scolded me with his eyes, turning back to his yard work, but tossing a last question at me over his shoulder.
“Why on earth would you want to look into the suspicious death of that dear, sweet girl who was so trusting and nice to you?”
*
A few minutes past seven, after purchasing
Sexual Predator: The Sordid True Story of Rod Preston’s Secret Life,
I took my place at the end of the line outside Book Soup, where one of the windows displayed more copies of Randall Capri’s book along with its usual surfeit of Hollywood titles. Thirty or forty people waited in line ahead of me, half of them out on the sidewalk, the other half inside the Book Soup Addendum next door, where the signing was taking place.
It was still early and the Strip was relatively quiet. A block in front of me, directly west, the old-fashioned marquee on Johnny Depp’s Viper Room shone brightly against the club’s tacky black exterior, announcing a few bands I’d never heard of that wouldn’t start making their noise for at least another couple of hours. At this hour, most of the business was across the street at Tower Records, or at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago Hollywood just up the hill, where the limos came and went but the paparazzi no longer thronged, since the celebrity diners there tended to be on the older side these days, no longer in fashion and some of them no longer working at all.
As the line outside Book Soup shuffled forward, I could see Randall Capri through the small windowpanes of the Addendum, sitting at a table in the back where the usual discount-book displays had been pushed aside to accommodate the signing. At first glance, from this distance, he appeared to be a stereotypical Hollywood pretty boy in his mid-twenties, a slim brunette with thick, wavy hair and heavy lashes over sparkling dark eyes. Each time he looked up to accept the next book and greet the next customer, he flashed a smile that dazzled with well-shaped lips and perfect teeth. As my section of the line moved inside, however, I got a better look at him and realized he was at least a decade older, one of those fey young men blessed with good genes who takes care of his skin and knows where to get the right haircut. He might have been Italian, maybe Greek, certainly Mediterranean; his parents must have been a very attractive couple, and he surely had been a most adorable little boy.
A few minutes later, he was looking up and stretching his smile for me.
“If you would, sign it ‘To Alexandra, with best wishes.’”
“I’d be happy to.”
He bent over the book with his Sharpie, scrawling what I asked, finishing it off with his name, exactly as he’d done on two or three dozen books before me. I turned away, replaced by the next person in the line, which was comprised mostly of men who struck me as inordinately chatty and probably gay, along with needy-looking women in various shapes and sizes who smiled excessively as I passed. I studied their faces as I made my way out of the store; most of Randall Capri’s fans impressed me as starstruck and vacuous, as if they needed a life a whole lot more than they needed another biography of a dead celeb, although when it came to needing a life, I was hardly in a position to point my finger.