As I turned the corner at Hilldale onto Santa Monica Boulevard, a wave of strolling men swept me along, and the sexual energy felt electric.
Traffic was backed up for blocks as hundreds of men flowed into the neighborhood to see what the warm Friday evening might have to offer. By midnight, the number would be in the thousands.
Not that many years ago, before AIDS and the political reawakening that came with it, Boy’s Town had been an enclave primarily of attractive young white males. Now, the range of ethnic beauty on the street was finally beginning to reflect the change in Southern California itself. There were even some women in the crowd, ranging from booted, short-haired dykes to more conventional lipstick lesbians, mostly in pairs and holding hands.
Folding tables lined the sidewalk near the curb, where volunteers registered passersby to vote in the November election or sought donations for lesbian or gay candidates. In front of the cafes and coffeehouses, friends gathered around small tables, drinking and carrying on, including a deaf group that communicated excitedly in sign language. One table erupted with appreciative catcalls as a crewcut muscular man in cutoffs and combat boots passed by, moving with the sturdy cadence of a Marine on leave, which he may very well have been. He gave his admirers a wink, but kept marching with a sense of purpose that could only mean a favorite bar in the next block.
A sleek black car slipped into a yellow zone at the curb, and an actor whom I recognized from the film
Amadeus
jumped out. He scurried into A Different Light, the gay bookstore, with his shoulders hunched and his head down. Seconds later, he emerged carrying an order of books that must have been waiting for him, darting back to his car and pulling into traffic without ever looking anyone in the eye.
Outside a coffeehouse, a fifteen-year-old, well known in the neighborhood for his budding political militancy, sat on the lap of a bare-chested, well-built man with a gold ring through each distended nipple. The boy waved a delicate hand at two sheriff’s deputies as they rolled slowly past in their black-and-white cruiser, and when they failed to respond, blew them a kiss.
For all the numbers and the revelry, it was a peaceful crowd. In the years I’d lived in and around the neighborhood, I’d seen only two fistfights, and those were between hard-swinging women outside the lesbian bar farther down the boulevard. The primary danger on the streets of Boy’s Town wasn’t its inhabitants but the occasional carful of gay bashers who piled out with pipes and baseball bats to knock a lesbian or gay man senseless, or beat them to death.
The scene carried hidden dangers, of course, HIV foremost among them, if you chose to take certain risks. And the sexual objectification could be every bit as severe and dehumanizing as the kind practiced in the straight clubs on the Santa Monica Promenade, or anywhere else. But Boy’s Town was where many men felt safe from a hostile world, free to be themselves, if only for a few hours, and if only in a fleeting, superficial way. Jacques had always said it was both the most liberating and the most oppressive place he’d ever known.
I found Derek Brunheim sitting alone at Boy Meets Grill, tucked in a corner just inside the open doors.
He was dressed all in black, despite the summer weather, looking distant and not particularly happy. Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” was playing on the sound system while sleek Hispanic busboys moved between the tables and certain customers eyed them intently, trying to figure out if they were homo or hetero.
“I’ve never cared much for the Gay Ghetto,” Brunheim said, surveying the street as I took the chair across the table. “I always get the impression that these airheads feel gay liberation extends no further than their erections.”
“It definitely has its shallow side,” I said.
With one hand, he swirled white wine in a glass. In the other, he clasped a cardboard carton the size of a telephone book, which I assumed contained the photos.
“I’ve been thinking about you since our last visit,” he said. “About your line of questions. Now you’ve chosen to meet me here. Am I correct when I assume that you’re one of us?”
I nodded.
“Married?”
“Widowed, you might say.”
“The plague?”
I nodded again.
He sighed, rolling the stem of his wineglass between his fingers.
“So many men, so little time,” he said. “My, how the meaning of that line has changed.”
His eyes strayed back to the party on the street outside.
“Look at them. They couldn’t care less about Stonewall, or any of the queers and dykes who risked their lives marching in the streets twenty-five years ago. The fact that people are dying, getting bashed, thrown out of their apartments, losing their jobs means nothing to them. Just as long as they have a clean, well-lighted place to cruise and a cock to suck at the end of the night.”
He drained the wine from his glass and set it sharply on the table.
“They’re just having fun,” I said. I felt defensive for Jacques’s sake, because West Hollywood, for all its snobbery and illusions, had been his only real home. “There’s a sense of community here. A place to belong.”
“For some.”
Brunheim’s mouth curled venomously, drawing in his pitted face.
“Billy called it a gay paradise. And, of course, for someone like Billy, it was.” The tone of his voice turned nasty. “But trust me, honey. If you’re old or fat or ugly or female, Boy’s Town can be the loneliest place on earth.”
A waiter arrived with menus. His head was shaved clean and three tiny gold rings pierced one of his nostrils. I ordered a carafe of Pinot Grigio, and he went to get it.
“I had a talk with Jefferson Bellworthy,” I said. “You two are closer than I realized.”
“He’s a dear, sweet man.”
“I also spoke with Margaret Devonshire.”
“The Wicked Witch of the North.”
“After talking with her, I admire you even more for shielding her from the photographs.” I glanced pointedly at the carton in his hands. “I could certainly understand the temptation to hurt her, to strike back.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered opening this little Pandora’s box and flinging her son’s lurid sexual history in her face.”
The waiter arrived with the carafe of wine and two fresh glasses, which he filled. We ordered food, and as the waiter hurried off, I reached for the box in Brunheim’s hand.
“May I?”
He clutched it tightly, drawing it away.
“You seem awfully anxious to have this, Mr. Justice.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you do.”
I sat back in my chair and drank some wine. I’d obviously taken Brunheim, or at least the foulness of his mood, too lightly.
“Jefferson called me,” Brunheim said. “He warned me to be careful.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“Is there something you’re afraid I’ll find out?”
“Why should I trust you with these photographs? Why do you want them so badly?”
“They may tell me something about Billy I won’t learn elsewhere.”
“What exactly is it you’re looking for?”
“I won’t know until I see it.”
“I didn’t come here to play chess, Mr. Justice.”
I leaned forward on my elbows to close the distance between us.
“Reporters don’t always know what they’re looking for, Derek. They go exploring, not always sure where they’ll end up.”
“And where would you like to end up?”
“At the truth.” I paused for effect. “Is that a problem for you?”
My eyes were as direct as my language. To my surprise, Brunheim met them straight on and didn’t waver.
Finally, he shoved the box across the table.
“Take them. I’m happy to have them out of my life. I just hope you won’t use them to hurt Billy.”
I placed them on the chair next to me, under the table, out of his reach.
I finished my wine and refilled both our glasses. Brunheim asked if I’d gleaned anything from Margaret Devonshire that was worth repeating. I mentioned her allegation that he’d deliberately addicted her son to cocaine.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “What other vicious little scenarios did she concoct?”
“She said that Billy was moving out, ending his friendship with you.”
“In her dreams.”
When I said nothing, he looked at me incredulously.
“Surely, you don’t believe that cunt!”
“You haven’t been entirely honest with me, Derek.”
He reached for a basket of rolls, took one, and lathered it thickly with butter.
“Perhaps you’d like to elaborate.” He tried to maintain a cool supremacy, but the confidence was gone from his voice.
“You told me that you and Billy spent a quiet last evening together.”
He ate the roll in two bites and washed it down with wine. Then he twirled the glass again, glaring at me over the rim.
“Isn’t it true,” I said, “that you and Billy actually had a violent argument that night?”
He gripped the stem of his glass so tightly I thought it might break.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’m a reporter, Derek. People talk to me.”
“If you’re even remotely suggesting that I wanted Billy dead…” His nostrils flared, revealing dense thickets of dark hair within. “I could smash your face in, Mr. Justice. Don’t ever underestimate the fury of a radical fern.”
“Do you have an alibi for that night? Roughly from eleven-thirty through the following hour?”
“I was home asleep. I already told you that.”
“Not exactly. You told me that when Billy got the phone call before he went out, you were getting ready for bed.”
“I slept alone, as usual. I suppose that leaves me without an alibi, doesn’t it? Tough titties.”
“What exactly is your relationship with Jefferson Bellworthy?”
“I don’t sleep with him, if that’s what you mean.”
“You’ve been paying him money.”
Brunheim swallowed hard with surprise.
“The other night at the gym,” I said, “I saw several of your personal checks made out to him.”
“If I want to give him money, that’s my business.”
“How many more have you written?”
“A few. So what?”
“Maybe you paid him to commit an act of violence you didn’t have the stomach for yourself.”
Brunheim’s hand flashed, and before I could duck, cold wine splashed across my face.
At that moment, the waiter arrived with the food, waiting awkwardly while I mopped my face with my napkin.
“Don’t mind us,” Brunheim told the waiter. “We’re just reenacting a scene from a favorite Forties movie. Naturally, I’m taking the Joan Crawford role.”
When the waiter had gone, Brunheim handed me a fresh napkin.
“I should have ground my glass into your fucking face, you piece of insensitive shit.”
His words were as harsh as his tone was incongruously light. He spread his napkin neatly on his lap and picked up his fork, as if nothing unpleasant had transpired between us.
“No point in letting good food go to waste,” he said.
He shoved the fork into a pile of pasta, pushed it into his mouth, and followed it with several more.
“If you must know,” he said, “Jefferson gives me massages.”
“At a hundred dollars a session?”
“It’s the going rate for good-looking men who treat you nicely. And worth every penny, I might add. Jefferson has incredibly strong hands, and he knows how to touch a man in just the right way. I get ninety minutes of heaven, then a quick jack-off at the end. I’d much prefer to spend my hundred dollars on that than a new pair of Kenneth Coles.”
He spooned grated Parmesan onto his pasta and wolfed down a few more bites.
“It’s the only sex I’ve had in three years,” he went on. “If you can call it sex. You probably don’t know what it’s like to be without that kind of human contact, Mr. Justice. But I can assure you, it’s not natural.”
He shot me a sharper glance.
“And don’t get the idea that I’m ashamed of paying for it. Whatever discretion I have is for Jefferson’s sake. He’s a proud man, he doesn’t want people to know. Please, promise me you won’t tell him that I told you. Or anyone else.”
“You’ve got my word, Derek.
I reached for the wine and refilled his glass. We ate for a minute or two in silence, enough time for him to clear half his plate.
“Tell me, Mr. Justice, are arrogance and callousness prerequisites for being a journalist?”
“I suppose they help.”
He offered me the basket of rolls. I took one, split it, and dipped a section into a saucer of olive oil.
“I’m sorry about my little outburst,” he said.
“I probably deserved it.”
He paused, holding a pat of butter on the end of his knife, as if balancing a thought.
“If you’re looking for someone with a motive for murdering Billy, I suggest you look elsewhere. Someone you may not have thought of.”