Lay Your Sleeping Head

by Michael Nava

  “Mr. Hancock’s office.”

  “Yes, my name is Henry Rios, I’m a lawyer down in Linden. May I speak to Mr. Hancock?”

  “May I tell him what this about?”

  “A personal matter involving a mutual friend, Hugh Paris.”

  “One moment.”

  A deep male voice said, “Hello, this is Grant Hancock. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Mr. Hancock, my name is Henry Rios. I’m a friend of Hugh Paris.”

  There was a pause. “I see. Is Hugh okay?”

  The pause was on my end. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “I’m very sorry to have to tell you but Hugh is dead.”

  A long pause. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Henry Rios.”

  “I’m going to have to call you back. Give me your number.”

  I gave him my number. He hung up.

  Twenty minutes later he called back. “Can you come up to the city tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “My place at nine.”

  Grant Hancock lived in a high-rise near the Embarcadero Center. I parked on the street and approached the blue awning that marked the entrance of the building. A burly doorman in a blue blazer and gray flannel trousers stood just inside the double glass doors. It was an odd neighborhood for a luxury high-rise. There were no other residential buildings around, only deserted offices and shuttered stores. That, and the proximity of a sketchy looking, poorly lit park explained the slight bulge beneath the doorman’s jacket where he strapped his holster. It also explained why the doorman looked more bodyguard than someone hired simply to hold open the door and accept packages. I identified myself to him and he called up to Grant Hancock. A moment later I boarded a wood-paneled elevator that whisked me soundlessly to the top floor.

  I rang the bell to apartment four. The broad-shouldered boy in Hugh’s picture had become a broad-shouldered man. Beneath a mop of tousled, dark brown hair, he had a square jawed, sensible face and a big, athletic body. He was wearing navy suit trousers and a pearl-colored dress shirt. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing a thatch of chest hair. Put him in a pair of dark-framed glasses and you had Clark Kent.

  Although the doorman had announced me, Hancock still seemed surprised to find me at his door and kept me standing there for a moment, looking at me, until his manners kicked in. “Please come in, Mr. Rios.”

  “Henry,” I said.

  “Grant,” he replied.

  The room was done in shades of brown, beige, white and tan, as tasteful and antiseptic as the sitting room in a five-star hotel suite. The only personal touches were the white take-out cartons of Chinese food, the bottle of red wine on the marble coffee table and a gym bag tossed in the corner of the room.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

  “Whatever you’re having,” I said.

  He grabbed a wine glass from a china hutch filled with fine china that looked it had never been used, poured me a glass of wine from the bottle on the coffee table, handed it to me and invited me to sit down.

  “I was just finishing dinner. There’s plenty if you’re hungry.”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine. I was sorry to have to be the one to tell you about Hugh.”

  He sat back, looked at me, and said, “I didn’t believe you so I called his great-uncle. He told me it was true. An overdose?”

  “That’s what the medical examiner says.”

  He shook his head. “I just saw him. He said he was off drugs.”

  “You may have been the last person to have seen him alive,” I said.

  He absorbed this, shock slowly spreading across his handsome face. “You mean, it happened the night we had dinner? Are you sure?”

  “I was with him that day. He told me he was meeting you for dinner.”

  A light went on in his eyes. “You’re the guy he was dating.”

  “He told you that?”

  Hancock nodded. “He said he was driving down to Linden to his boyfriend’s place.” He gave me a long look. “Yeah, I see the attraction. I’m sorry for your loss, Henry. I’m not sure what I can do for you.”

  “How was he that night?” I said.

  “Hugh said you’re a lawyer. Criminal defense.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  He nodded. “Okay, I understand, Henry. You want make sense of it. I would, too, in your position. What can I tell you?”

  “Was he high?”

  He grimaced. “That’s direct.” He thought for a moment. “Hugh seemed completely lucid. He didn’t even have a drink.”

  “Can you tell me what you talked about?” He hesitated, so I continued. “When Hugh was at the drug treatment center in New York where he got clean, he started keeping this journal. He wrote down a list of people he thought he had hurt and to whom he owed an apology. Your name was at the top of the list.”

  I had grabbed one of the journals on my way out the door. I laid it on the table between us. He stared at it, then me.

  “He apologized,” he said.

  “For what?”

  Grant refilled our wine glasses, fingered the cover of Hugh’s journal and said, “Hugh was fourteen when he showed up at my prep school. I was sixteen. My dad’s a friend of his great-uncle John and he asked me to keep an eye on him. I kept an eye on him, all right,” he said, picking up his glass. “I fell in love with him.” He took a slug of wine. “He was a beautiful boy.”

  “What happened between you?”

  “Drugs. There’s a bad crowd at every high school, even in the backwoods of Massachusetts. Kids went down to New York or Boston for the weekend and came back with drugs or bought them from townies. Not just pot. Pills, hash, cocaine, heroin. You name it. Hugh fell in with them. He was hardcore from the start. He used drugs like he wanted to kill himself. I covered for him at first but eventually I got so worried he might hurt himself that I told him if he didn’t straighten out, I’d tell his great-uncle.”

  “What did he do?”

  He finished his wine in a single swallow. “He crawled naked into my bed one night, told me he loved me and then sucked me off like a pro. I didn’t know what to think. I had just barely admitted to myself that I might be gay and here was the boy I was in love with letting me do things to him I had only dreamed about. The next day he said if I told his uncle about the drugs, he would have to leave school and we wouldn’t be able to be together.”

  “So you kept covering for him.”

  “Yes. I thought now that we were, well, whatever we were, I could persuade him to give up the drugs and scumbags he was getting them from. I was in love with Hugh, but he wasn’t in love with me. He loved drugs. He bribed me with sex to keep me quiet. Finally, I had enough. I told him if he didn’t stop, I would tell his uncle even if it meant him leaving school.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. He said unless I kept my mouth shut, he’d tell the headmaster I’d raped him. Talk about being sucker punched.” He looked like he was still feeling it. “Then it got worse.”

  “How?”

  “As soon as he figured out I would do anything to keep him from going to the headmaster, he started blackmailing me for money for drugs.”

  “No wonder you were on his list of amends.”

  “Yeah, that’s why he called me when he got back to the city.” He poured out the last of the wine. “I hadn’t seen him since the day I graduated from that school and beat the crap out of him.”

  “You did what?”

  He got up. “We need another bottle.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen. Hugh told me his addiction had turned him into a liar and a thief and a whore, but he’d never offered, and I’d never asked for, details. It was shocking to hear Hugh was already using sex and blackmail to maintain his habit when he was fourteen. He was twenty-six when I met him. How far down into the well of addiction had he gone in those years and how had it shaped his cha
racter? Don’t trust me, he had warned me. Was I wrong about his death? Had he overdosed himself? Was I just the latest in a line of people who covered for him? I looked at the plain black and white cover of his journal. The voice in those pages was so raw and self-lacerating I wanted to believe that, whatever he had been, he had been trying to change.

  Grant returned with another bottle of wine. “Help yourself,” he said. “Yeah, what was I saying? Oh, so the day I got my diploma, I excused myself from my parents and went and found Hugh. He was getting high with some of his low-life friends. I told him I needed to talk to him. I took him to the woods behind the school and left him on the ground crying. I told him, ‘you can tell the headmaster anything you want, asshole.’ I didn’t hear from him again until a month ago when he called me up and asked me to have dinner with him.”

  “How was that?”

  “Awkward,” he said with a humorless laugh. “He said he’d been in some kind of drug program and part of it was making restitution to people he had hurt when he was using. He wanted to give me money to make up for the money he had blackmailed from me. I wouldn’t take it. I told him the money was the least of what he had done to me. He said he knew that.” Grant’s voice softened a bit. “He told me, I took advantage of the feelings you had for me. He said, I’m not asking for you to forgive me, I’m just letting you know that I know what I did and how wrong it was.” Grant sighed. “As skeptical as I was about this change of heart, that got to me. I told him we were just kids. I apologized for hitting him. He said he’d deserved it. So, long answer to your question, that’s what we talked about.”

  “He didn’t say anything to you about the car accident that killed his grandmother and his uncle?”

  He looked puzzled. “No.”

  “Nothing about his grandfather,” I paused, “sexually abusing him when he was a kid?”

  He stared at me. “Judge Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, and if he had I wouldn’t have believed him. I clerked for Judge Paris. He’s a piece of work but a pedophile? I don’t think so.” He sipped his wine. “Why are you asking me these questions, Henry?”

  “I don’t think he killed himself.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “He was on his way to see me,” I said. “He wouldn’t have shown up high. And one of the cops noticed some details when they found him that seemed suspicious to her. He also told me some disturbing things about his grandfather that make me think he would have been relieved if Hugh was out of the way.”

  He didn’t try to conceal his skepticism. “He tell you his grandfather raped him?”

  “Among other things.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time he made a false accusation like that,” Grant observed.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To get your sympathy,” he said. “To keep you hooked. He talked about you at dinner. Not by name. He just said he had met someone. He told me he thought he might be falling in love with this guy but he needed to be sure. I asked him what he meant and he said he needed to be sure of his motives. He told me manipulating people was second nature to him, something he did without thinking. He said he needed to know he wasn’t doing that to you.”

  “You’re still angry at him,” I said.

  Grant flushed. “Yes, I am. I’m not saying it’s fair and I’m sure it’s not very attractive since he’s gone, but when I came out to him, I let him in on my deepest secret and he fucked me over. It took me years to work up the courage to come back out.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Yeah. He said he was sorry. Sorry doesn’t always cut it.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything left to say. I stood up. “Thanks for your time, Grant.”

  He rose too. “Look, Henry, I’m not a jerk.”

  “I know that,” I said. “You seem like a pretty decent guy to me and what Hugh did to you was unconscionable. You’re within your rights not to forgive him.”

  “Yeah, well, when you put it like that I feel really small.” He glanced at the journal. “Can I hang on to this?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Let’s trade numbers, okay,” he said. “Keep in touch?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He gave me his card with his home number written on the back, I gave him my number. He walked me to the door.

  “If it’s any consolation, Hugh really sounded genuinely happy about you,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  As I rode down the elevator, I thought the more I learned about Hugh, the more elusive he became. Who was he, after all? That, more than how he had died or what his grandfather had done or not done, was the real mystery here.

  The doorman acknowledged my departure with the slightest of nods. I had parked next to the park and now, as I made my way to my car, the streets were deserted. Only the racket from the distant freeway and the lumbering noise of the buses as they screeched to a halt at the nearby bus yard broke the silence. At least the night was clear, the summer fogs having finally lifted as the city approached its autumn Indian summer. I was almost at my car when I saw two men emerge from a thicket of bushes at the edge of the park. I didn’t know it was a cruising park but then anywhere in the city, dark and isolated, was potentially a gay hunting ground. The men walked toward me. Something was off. Gay guys out for sex didn’t usually wear stocking masks over their faces. By the time I realized I was being mugged, one of them had grabbed me and slammed me against the side of my car. Then the other one jabbed me in the neck with a syringe and that was the last thing I remembered.

  I was awakened by the rat scampering across my ankles. It disappeared beneath the dumpster beside me. I was in an alley, my back against a brick wall. At the end of the alley was a streetlight. A car rolled by. Someone had puked between my outstretched legs. I tasted vomit in my mouth. Mystery solved. My head was spinning and my body felt like it was encased in cement. I raised my watch to my face. One forty-five. I had left Grant’s apartment almost three hours earlier. My head settled down. I tried to remember. A needle. I felt around on my neck until I found the injection site. So that had happened. What else? Driving around. Some guy asking questions. Someone rooting through my pockets. I felt for my wallet. Gone. Keys. Gone. I struggled to my feet and stumbled toward the streetlight.

  The spire of the Transamerica pyramid loomed ahead of me in the distance. I staggered to the nearest intersection and looked at the street signs: Folsom and Tenth. There was a gay bar around here somewhere. What was it called? Febe’s. Leather bar. Khakis, Topsiders and a polo shirt. Not really dressed for a leather bar. Still, any port in a storm. I saw a red light over a doorway a couple of streets down the road. Ten long minutes later I parted a leather curtain and stumbled into Febe’s.

  Two men were playing Pacman. One of them wore black leather pants and a harness. His nipples were pierced. The other player wore jeans that had been rubbed white at the crotch, a black T-shirt inscribed Hardcore and a collar studded with metal spikes. He sipped Perrier. Behind a curved bar bathed in red lights, the bartender looked at me quizzically.

  “I’ve been mugged,” I said, took a step toward the bar, and passed out.

  I was awakened with a hit of amyl nitrate.

  “Stop,” I muttered, pushing the little brown bottle out of my face. “Enough.”

  Someone asked, “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said, sitting up.

  The bartender knelt beside me. He was wearing a tight pair of Levi’s and a gray and pink bowling shirt with the name Norma Jean stitched above the pocket. Most of his face was lost behind a thick beard, but there was a look of maternal concern in his coffee-colored eyes.

  “That was some entrance,” he said. “You said you were mugged.”

  I nodded. “At my car near the Embarcadero. They drugged me, took my wallet and keys and dumped me in an alley.”

  “I could call the cops but I got to warn you, gay bars ain�
��t high on their priorities. You’ll be lucky if they bother showing up at all.”

  I dug around in my pants pocket and found Grant Hancock’s card. “Let me try calling a friend first.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Come on, upsy daisy.” He lifted me to my feet.

  The bar was empty now and the house lights were on, revealing a homey and rather shabby tavern. The bartender sat me on a bar stool, went around the bar and put the phone in front of me.

  “Call your friend. I’ve got to clean up.”

  “Thanks. I know your name’s not Norma Jean.”

  “Dean,” he said, grabbing a broom.

  “Thanks, Dean. I’m Henry.” He nodded acknowledgement while I dialed Grant’s number.

  To my surprise, Grant picked up on the second ring.

  “Grant, it’s Henry Rios. I’m sorry to bother you, but after I left your place I was mugged.”

  “What? Are you okay?”

  “I think so. A couple of guys came out from the park, drugged me, drove me around, took my wallet and keys and dumped me on Folsom.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “You know the bar called Febe’s?”

  There was a pause. “The leather place?”

  “Yeah, I managed to crawl in here.”

  “Okay, sit tight. I’m on my way.”

  Half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Dean shut off the vacuum cleaner and went to answer. A minute later, Grant pushed through the leather curtain in a Burberry overcoat. Behind him, Dean winked at me approvingly.