“It doesn’t sound like it,” Robbie said.
“There was that afternoon and then a couple of other outings,” she said, “and that was it. I lost touch with him. My very first thought when you told me the news was that it had to be a mistake, an accident. He was full of life. But we can’t know.”
“Your name was one of a handful Tom didn’t cross out in his address book.”
The woman issued a round ha. “I held on to his contact information, too,” she said, “even though I knew it had to be out-of-date.” Then another long breath, and the woman asked, “So how come he and I never tried to find each other?”
• • •
T
HAT MORNING,
when Carlo was finishing cleaning up the front yard, he had tried to decipher the graffiti on the trash bins, and while he understood he was likely looking at a tag, a name, he was also convinced if he stared long enough, he’d decode a message, a threat of some kind. He was convinced the vandalism was the work of someone (or some group) who wanted to kick the two men while they were down, make fun of them as if they’d staged an outré orgy and needed to be mocked. Robbie had refused to read the same augury. Innards had been splattered against the pavement, and Carlo would have thought that in Robbie’s pensive state, some rare pessimism might be revealed—not so. Robbie remained the naïf, the undaunted optimist, although at the same time, he was still fixating on Tom’s death, still puzzling it out, Tom’s state of mind, Tom’s motive (and how had Robbie gotten Tom’s grandmother’s phone number?)—what would it take to satisfy him? Carlo had to wonder, given the way his boyfriend appeared to be groping for answers, if Robbie would eventually try somehow to track Tom’s death back to Carlo, and briefly then, a moment of paranoia. Briefly, the thought again that he should at least tell Robbie what Robbie would otherwise never know about what happened after he fell asleep that night—but no, too much time had passed. Even a partial confession now would only make matters worse.
Carlo had picked off strands of dryer lint from the lower branches of the pepper tree and the bread crust and chicken bones scattered across the stoop, the lawn clippings amassing against the side of the house, and when he had gone inside, he tried to make more out of the vandalism than possibly he should have in an effort to distract Robbie, to take his mind off Tom. Robbie
hadn’t taken the bait. He claimed he had a fever, although he looked fine.
A short while later, when Carlo left for the office, he stood at the end of the driveway and stared at (stared down) the drowsy school kids drifting in clusters down the block. All the boys in their low-draped denim, their practiced illusion of disillusion, any of them could be the vandals. They stared back at Carlo as well, meeting his weary gaze with their own wariness. He was about to turn and be on his way when he noticed Gabriel’s friend who worked at the liquor store, Lonny, stumbling along amid the group, which was suspect because Lonny should have been out of school by now. He was wearing a baseball jacket that was several sizes too small, entertaining younger kids with some story that, from what Carlo could hear, was laced with expletives and slurs, and Carlo caught him glancing at the house, snickering, surely noting Carlo standing there, hands on hips, and yet Lonny avoided eye contact. The punk knew something, Carlo was certain of it.
From there the day did not improve. He had been calling former clients asking if they had dream projects ready to realize or perhaps friends or acquaintances with work in the pipeline, and he’d hoped maybe he’d find a positive message or email waiting for him. The only message, however, was from the television producer, who had phoned with news of what he referred to as a breakthrough reconceptualization.
Oddly, Carlo didn’t mind the prospect of making alterations or rethinking major aspects of the project because an unexpected pleasure in the weeks following Tom’s death came when, with Robbie hardly present, Carlo had to exercise his out-of-shape
training after so long deferring to his more talented partner. The fact was he enjoyed revision more than any other aspect of the design process, and he was much more skilled at refining an idea than he was at first-draftsmanship. His true calling might have been as a first reader, an editor, but he’d always been shy about acknowledging this even to Robbie, maybe because the redactor enjoyed far less esteem culturally than the visionary, or more likely because Carlo was uneasy with these and the other roles they’d lapsed into over time. It wasn’t always that way, he didn’t think, not in the early years when there was more parity both in the office and at home. Anyway, despite his mistakes, he’d had fun redrawing the producer’s house and would do so again.
The problem was that now when Carlo spoke with him, the producer wanted a joist-to-roof-beam reconsideration, and when the subject of money came up, given the proposed prolonged design phase, the producer said he also wanted to change the fee arrangement so that Stein Voight conceivably might not, as he put it, see another cent from him until principle construction was well underway. As politely as he could, Carlo suggested that they’d signed a contract, and then with considerably less politesse, the producer bounced back that in his business, contracts were only as good as the lawyers who could file suit over breaches of contracts. Carlo didn’t follow, or didn’t want to follow. The producer was Stein Voight’s only current client.
Over the course of the morning, the producer continued to unspool his new thoughts via email, which included elimination of the rental units in favor of a guest house as well as a lap pool on the back patio of the indoor-outdoor genre. The producer said
he wasn’t running for elected office and didn’t need to prove anything with the solar panels on the roof. He wanted another terrace with an outdoor fireplace. He never understood the mitered brise-soleil around the master bedroom level, and didn’t he mention before that he was going to need a weight room? Also, his relatively new boyfriend was taking cooking classes and the kitchen was his theater and therefore could they double the center island space and add a half-dozen stool spots for his relatively new boyfriend’s future audience? Finally the house was looking a little too severe (the boyfriend’s word). Instead of steel framing, wood might be more pleasant. Instead of metal panels, cream stucco. And what about shutters? Not to use, merely an ornamental touch.
The man wanted a villa. He wanted a completely different kind of house and probably needed a different lot to build it on. Not only would the producer’s palazzo necessitate starting from scratch, but also the forfeiture of a career-long aesthetic. To remain solvent, Stein Voight had to build the producer’s house, and the more garish a pile of stucco it was, ironically, the more Stein Voight stood to reap in fees. This was not who Carlo wanted to be in the world, a toadeater subservient to his clients’ ill will and bad taste, but he reminded himself the job was as much for Robbie’s welfare as his own, for the two men together, so he replied that he’d work with the producer’s ideas and get back to him.
And Carlo did take a deep breath, and he had every intention of launching himself head-first into the redesign, for what choice did he have, when Detective Michaels appeared at the front door.
“If you don’t mind, I have a few additional questions for you,” she said when she sat down in the chair next to Carlo’s desk. “Mr. Voight isn’t here today?”
“He’s home sick,” Carlo said.
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s interesting the way different couples operate,” Detective Michaels said.
Carlo wasn’t sure what to do with the comment. “You mean I should be home taking care of him?” he asked.
“I’m thinking about the events of last April that you told me about,” Detective Michaels said, “but didn’t tell your partner about.”
The detective was staring at him without blinking, reading him.
“This interests me,” she went on, “because, you see, my husband and I don’t keep anything from each other. Of course, I’m married to a fellow cop—different precinct—and he knows me too well for me to keep secrets.”
“That’s sweet,” Carlo said. “To be in the same line of work—I know what that’s like, obviously.”
“And your line of work? Business is good for you lately?”
“Some clients are easier than others.”
Again the detective was reading him.
“It’s been slow,” Carlo said. “Why, is this related to your investigation?”
“Slow for how long would you say?”
“A while. A year. Longer.”
“Mr. Voight hasn’t been working regular hours, has he, since Mr. Field passed away?”
Had the police been watching the office? Had they been on a stakeout this whole time?
“That’s correct,” Carlo said.
“He’s upset.”
“He is upset, yes.”
“He’s having trouble moving on from the incident at your house perhaps because …”
Carlo blinked. “Perhaps because what?”
Detective Michaels tapped her pen against the pad.
“Something is troubling him,” she said. “Something he might have recently learned.”
“He doesn’t know anything more than he did the night Tom died,” Carlo said. “I haven’t told him anything new.”
“Still nursing your secret.”
“The timing doesn’t seem right to get into what happened,” Carlo said.
“Will the timing ever be right to tell him about what happened last April? Or about everything else?” the detective asked, a question that took a moment to float to the floor.
What did she know? Carlo didn’t think he should say anything more.
“You didn’t tell Mr. Voight about the carjacking,” Detective Michaels said, “so I don’t suppose you told him that you’d bought a gun.”
Carlo tried not to blink. He blinked.
“You applied for a permit,” the detective said. “We can track these things.”
In the days and weeks that followed the attempted carjacking, Carlo couldn’t shake what had happened. He was cloaked in
a kind of numbness, isolated from everything, everyone, including Robbie—a numbness, a haze, an unfamiliar self-directed anger because during the crime he’d acted feebly (not that he knew what he should have done). Blame Tom—Tom at the police station was the one who had brought up guns and what might have gone down instead had Carlo been armed (and it had occurred to Carlo that, unbeknownst to Robbie, Tom’s story about the woman murdered in front of her child, Tom’s emphatic suggestion that the tragedy could have been averted if the woman had kept a weapon in her house, was a private jab at Carlo). About a month after the carjacking—this would have been in May—Carlo located a gun store near the airport and was surprised the store was as pristine and tidy as any sporting goods outlet. A clerk showed him firearms recommended for novices seeking self-defense, and the truth of the matter was that Carlo wanted a gun made for ladies but ended up buying a butch one that still appealed to his sense of style, a square silver ur-gun gun that would make the point should anyone again rush his car at the intersection of Fletcher and Riverside or anywhere else.
“I suppose I should have mentioned the gun purchase when I told you the rest,” Carlo said, “but I didn’t think it was relevant. It was going to be for self-defense,” he added, a stupid thing to say to a police officer—self-defense as opposed to what?
He had filled out the paperwork for the license and background check and signed up for a lesson at a shooting range, but the moment he left the store, he understood his folly: aim a gun at a banger with a gun, and he will blow you away. Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to avoid that particular intersection for the rest of his life? What had he been thinking? He’d keep the gun
hidden in his night table drawer? A secret gun would have eaten a hole through the hull of their house. He’d thought the act of purchasing a weapon would empower him, but instead he’d felt like a complete idiot.
“This gun,” the detective started to say.
“I don’t actually own it,” Carlo interrupted. “I mean that I don’t have it because I never went back to the store after the waiting period.” This was true.
“You’re saying you never picked up this weapon? After spending the money, after making the purchase …?”
“I’m saying I changed my mind. I didn’t want it. I don’t want it.”
He had watched and read enough procedurals in his time to know what was going on. He’d withheld certain information, and now he, the initial liar, the reluctant testifier, a keeper of secrets from his most-loved loved one, Carlo was undependable and capable of any deception. And if doubt lingered about any aspect of Tom’s death, Carlo should be the last man trusted on the subject.
“You understand,” Detective Michaels said, “I want to clear the case. I’m not saying that, other than a suicide, there was any foul play at your house on the night in question.”
Not saying it, but sniffing around for it, Carlo thought.
“Perhaps nothing criminal happened,” the detective said, “but
something
did happen, something I’m not fully grasping here. You understand my needs here, Mr. Stein, don’t you?”
“I didn’t mention that I’d bought a gun, and now you wonder what else I’m not telling you,” Carlo said.
“And
now
you’ve told us everything we need to know?”
Carlo remembered when he showed up at Tom’s apartment after going to the gun store. “There you are,” Tom had said, ultracasual, although Carlo hadn’t called ahead and if Tom hadn’t been home, Carlo would have left the borrowed green windbreaker hanging on the doorknob. “Come in, do come in,” Tom said, the gracious host.
“What is it?” Detective Michaels asked. “Mr. Stein—Carlo?”
“Nothing,” Carlo said.
“You’re not holding on, say, to one last little secret, are you? You’d taken a sleeping pill that night, right? You were out cold. Ah, for all you know, Mr. Voight might have gotten up? Maybe Mr. Voight can tell us—”
“No,” Carlo snapped. “No,” he said. The detective straightened her back.
“With all due respect, I think you’re fishing,” Carlo said. “Robbie is the heaviest sleeper in California. He would have slept through the Northridge quake, if I hadn’t pushed him out of bed. No way. No.”