Lay Your Sleeping Head

by Michael Nava

  “Okay,” she said, “But why? Why kill your friend?”

  “Maybe Aaron found the memo in the judge’s client file where he admits to killing his wife and son,” I said irritably. “I don’t know why, Aaron didn’t get a chance to tell me. But he must have something pretty incriminating.”

  “Except you said he told you that you got it all wrong. What do you think he meant by that?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But don’t tell me it was a coincidence that a lawyer with access to Judge Paris’s client file calls me to say he has important information about the judge and is shot dead before he can tell me what it is. He just happened to be robbed that night? I bet you didn’t find anything missing from his house.”

  “All that proves is that you interrupted the robbery before the robber could get away with anything,” she said.

  “You don’t really believe that,” I said.

  “No,” she allowed. “I don’t think it was a coincidence either, but it’s moot because the judge is dead.”

  “The judge is dead, but not the man who killed Aaron,” I reminded her. “Or the men who killed Hugh. They’re still out there.”

  “The investigation into your friend’s murder is ongoing,” she said. “But Sonny’s dropping Hugh’s case. He lost any leverage he might have had with the university when the judge died. Look, if you’re right, and the man who killed Aaron Gold was acting on orders from the judge, and we catch him, he may implicate the judge in Hugh’s death. He may even have been Hugh’s killer.”

  “You’ll never catch him,” I said. “Not with what you’ve got. A vague description and a street gun.”

  “Like I said, it’s an open investigation.”

  “Don’t bullshit me. You know as well as I do that unless you get incredibly lucky the investigation into Aaron’s murder will end up in the unsolved pile, gathering dust in a file cabinet somewhere.”

  “I promise you I will personally do everything I can to close the case.”

  I knew she would and I knew she wouldn’t, but now was not the time to be a jerk about it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

  I sprinted down University Drive toward the Old Quad at the end of a ten-mile run that had taken me around the perimeter of the university and into the foothills. The road in front of the quad was clogged with limousines and in their midst, a hearse. I ran up the steps, came to a slow stop, stripped off my shirt and used it to mop the sweat on my face and chest. Undergrads darted in and out of classrooms or lolled on benches in the warm September sun. The massive doors of the church had been thrown open on their great, iron hinges and the grave voices of a requiem choir floated through them into the still air. I picked up a pamphlet abandoned on the ground. On the cover was the photograph of a wizened old man. In memoriam, the Honorable Robert Prescott Paris, A Life Well-Lived. I glanced at the church. That’s what was going inside: the judge’s funeral. There were other photographs in the pamphlet. The judge in his robes, a family portrait where, for the first time, I laid eyes on Christina, Jeremy and Nicholas Paris. It was an old photograph. Two little blond boys, an elongated woman with a worried face and the judge smiling blandly for the camera. Nick Paris must have been ten or eleven but I could still see traces of Hugh’s features in his face. Jeremy Paris was a little older. His father’s hand rested on his shoulder. Maybe it was my imagination but Jeremy seemed to be flinching.

  I skimmed the program. The eulogy was being delivered by a former Governor. The music I had heard was In paradisum from Fauré’s Requiem. In paradise? Really? Is that where the murdering son-of-a-bitch had gone? I crumpled the pamphlet. At that moment, there was a burst of organ music. A moment later expensively-dressed men and women tumbled out of the church and into the quad where, immediately, cigarettes were lit and the chatter assumed cocktail party levels of raucousness. There was a brief pause in the noise as eight elderly men carried a bronze-colored casket out of the church and shuffled across the quad toward the waiting hearse. My first and last glimpse of Judge Robert Paris. His mourners were middle-aged and elderly, the ladies fanning themselves with their programs, the men cackling at each other’s remarks. No one seemed particularly broken up by the occasion.

  I couldn’t help but contrast the scene to the funeral in Los Angeles I had attended three days earlier to bury Aaron Gold. A half-dozen people, all family, except me. His parents frozen in postures of grief as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

  “A father shouldn’t have to bury his son,” Mr. Gold keened.

  I thought, too, of that other son whom a parent had to bury. What had gone through Katherine Paris’s mind when Hugh went into the grave?

  Young men dying—it was unnatural. This old man being carried out of the church in a metallic casket through the throng of important people was, I was certain, responsible for both those earlier deaths. Where was the justice in that?

  The funeral party had begun to notice me, standing shirtless and sweaty in their midst. Hostility from a few of the old men, more than casual interest from a couple of others. I turned to go but someone clasped my arm and a deep, familiar voice said, “Henry?”

  Grant was impeccably turned out in a perfectly cut black suit that emphasized his broad shoulders, narrow waist and long legs. He was stunningly handsome, all the more so because he radiated the careless confidence that comes from belonging. These rich, oblivious people were his tribe. I choked off the wave of resentment before it reached my mouth and I said something stupid.

  “Henry,” he repeated. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I was finishing my run when I saw the commotion. I didn’t know it was the old bastard’s funeral. You come to pay your respects?” I said, more acidly than I had intended.

  He flinched a bit at that. “My dad asked me to come. He reminded me that I clerked for the judge and said it was the proper thing to do.”

  I bit back a sarcastic response. “I’ve got to go.”

  He gently but firmly took my arm and steered me to an archway at the edge of the crowd. “I haven’t talked to you since you got back from L.A. How was Aaron’s funeral?”

  “It was hard,” I said, surprised and embarrassed to hear my voice breaking.

  He enfolded me in his arms and pressed me against his big male body and said, “You should have let me go with you like I suggested.”

  “I’m going to ruin your suit,” I mumbled.

  “Don’t worry about my suit,” he said. I rested my head against his shoulder and breathed in the smell of his cologne. After a moment, he said quietly, “My dad just saw us. He’s heading over.” I began to pull away but he held me more tightly. “It’s okay, Henry. May I introduce you?”

  “It would be weird if you didn’t,” I replied.

  He released me. I turned and saw an older, grayer and slightly thicker around the trunk version of Grant approach, in an equally well-cut suit. I hurriedly put on my sweaty shirt.

  “Dad,” Grant said, when his father reached us. “This is my friend, Henry Rios.”

  Mr. Hancock, seemingly oblivious of my running garb, grabbed my hand and smiled warmly at me. “Henry, how nice to meet you. Grant has told us so much about you.”

  That was a surprise. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, sir.” I said.

  “I gather you weren’t here for the funeral,” he said.

  “No, I was out running and I more or less stumbled across it.”

  “Grant tells me you’re a lawyer too. Did you ever meet Judge Paris?”

  “No, I knew his grandson, Hugh.”

  Mr. Hancock shook his head. “That was a tragedy. Hugh had a difficult life, but I always thought he was basically a good boy.”

  “A good man,” I said.

  “Of course,” Mr. Hancock said. “You must forgive me. The last time I saw Hugh he was a child and,” he continued, wrapping his arm around Grant’s shoulders, “at my age everyone under thirty looks like a kid.”

  “I’
ll be thirty in two months, Dad.”

  “I’m thirty-three,” I said.

  “Oh God, now I really feel old. Henry, I know you want to be on your way but would you be kind enough to wait here just for a moment while I find my wife? She’d never forgive me if I didn’t introduce you.”

  When he stepped away, I said, “You’ve talked to them about me?”

  Grant flushed a bit. “Yes, I talk about you a lot. Does that bother you?”

  “No. It just caught me off-guard.”

  He looked at me, a little anxious and a little exasperated. “I really like you, Henry, so yeah, I talk about you.”

  Before I could respond, Mr. Hancock returned with a small blonde woman. Her shellacked hair framed an expensively made-up, sharp-chinned face that I imagined her friends described as “pixieish.” In a pink-and-black wool suit she looked like all the other rich matrons milling around the entrance of the church except that her eyes danced with life.

  “Elizabeth,” Mr. Hancock said. “This is Henry Rios, the young man Grant has been telling us about. Henry, my wife Elizabeth.”

  She appraised me with her lively eyes on me and said, “Oh my, Henry, you’re even better looking than Grant said you were.”

  Beside me, Grant groaned.

  She waved a small hand at him, gold bracelets jangling on her wrist. “Oh, Grant, don’t be such a fuddy-duddy. He’s adorable. Come to dinner so we can get to know each other. It will be so much more fun than standing around in this heat and pretending to be sad about Bob Paris when nobody could stand him.”

  Grant groaned a little louder. “Mom, people can hear you.”

  She looked around. “I don’t hear anyone disagreeing.” She took her husband’s arm. “Come on, dear, I’m sure the boys would like to be alone. Henry, I’ll expect you at dinner before the end of the month.”

  Mr. Hancock gave me another firm handshake, another warm smile. “That was an ultimatum,” he said. “A word of advice from a guy who’s been married to her for forty years? Give her what she wants. Seriously, Henry, we’d love to see you under happier circumstances.”

  “I’d like that, too.”

  “Good. You and Grant pick a day. Goodbye, Henry. Such a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Ta, boys,” his mother said. “See you soon.”

  After they left, I said, “Your dad seems like a mensch.”

  He smiled. “Is that Spanish?” Before I could explain, he said, “I’m teasing you. I know what it means. And that’s exactly what he is. A mensch.”

  “Your mom is—”

  “The phrase you’re looking for is ‘a hoot’,” he said. “Would you really come to dinner or were you just being polite?”

  “I’d love to come to dinner,” I said. “I like you too, Grant.”

  “Great,” he said happily. “I have to go to the post-burial reception or whatever they call it. Can I come over afterwards?”

  “Yeah, that would be nice.” I smirked. “Should I shower?”

  His eyes got wide. “Oh,” he said. “Don’t go to any trouble for me.”

  He kissed me quickly but not furtively and headed toward his parents who were making their way to their car.

  I got up in the middle of the night to piss and when I slipped back into bed I was wide awake. Grant was on his side, his long back turned to me, breathing softly. His leg twitched and he rolled onto his back. Half-awake, his hand groped for my hand and when he found it, he folded our fingers together and sank back into sleep. In the drizzle of a streetlight outside the window, I watched him. His face, untouched by thought or feeling, revealed the abiding kindness that was his was essence, his soul.

  It was only his kindness, and not fear of rejection, that prevented him from telling me he was in love with me. He was waiting for me to give a sign I was ready to consider his feelings for me, whether I could reciprocate them or not. I gently released his hand and got out of bed. I pulled on a pair of boxers and picked his suit up from the floor where he had shed it and hung it over the back of a chair.

  “You look like a prince in that suit,” I had told him when he arrived at my place.

  “Me, no? You’re the one who looks like he stepped out of an El Greco painting.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and plopped down on the couch beside me. “There’s a famous El Greco painting in a little church in Toledo called The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. Have you ever seen a picture of it?”

  “No, never.”

  “The central figure is a Spanish count who is being laid to rest in the arms of two men in gold vestments who are supposed to be saints, I forget which ones. The count wears black and gold armor but his face is uncovered. I was eighteen when I saw that face. Long and dark and elegant. I was stunned. I actually had to stop myself from touching him and getting my mom and me thrown out of the church. Looking at him, something moved inside of me the way it does for all of us when we begin to realize we’re different from other boys. When we realize we feel about other boys the way they feel about girls.” He took a deep swallow of beer. “You look a little like him.”

  “The dead count?”

  He nodded. “Sometimes when I look at you, I feel the way I did standing in that little church with butterflies in my belly.” He laughed. “Tell me I haven’t made a complete fool of myself with that story.”

  I touched his arm. “No. I’m incredibly flattered.”

  I could see in his eyes he had hoped for a different response. “Anyway,” he said, “the point is, if there’s a prince in this room, it’s you, not me.”

  “I’m the son of a construction worker,” I said, “from a long line of campesinos. Pretty sure there are no counts in the family tree.” I straightened the collar of his shirt. “As good as you look in that suit, you’d look even better out of it,” I told him as we headed into the bedroom.

  Now, I slipped out of the bedroom. I poured myself a nightcap in the kitchen and wandered into the living room where I sat at my desk. There, beneath a pile of junk mail was the copy of The Little Prince I had taken from Hugh’s house. I opened it to a random page and read: It took me a long time to learn where he came from. The little prince, who asked me so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him. It was from words dropped by chance that, little by little, everything was revealed to me.

  Hugh. As opaque as Grant was transparent. As complicated as Grant was straightforward. When Hugh slept, his face was a question mark and that’s what he had left me with, a question mark. The little prince, who asked so many questions, never seemed to hear the ones I asked him. And now he never would.

  I heard Grant shuffle into the room and felt his hands on my shoulders.

  “Bedtime story?” he asked about the book.

  I closed it. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  He took the book from me. “I’ve never read this.” He flipped through the pages. The photograph of Hugh and him slipped from its pages and fluttered to the desk. He picked it up. “Where did you get this?”

  “Hugh gave it to me,” I said. “This was his book.”

  He sighed. “Hard to compete with a beautiful guy who died a tragic death.”

  “It isn’t a competition,” I said.

  “You were in love with him,” Grant said.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’m not going to spend the rest of life pining after him if that’s what you think. I’m not sentimental. I just need time and—”

  “Closure?”

  “If you want to be clinical about it. I would say I need to know what happened to him and why.”

  “You know I would do anything to help you find out.”

  “Then get me in to see his great-uncle John.”

  This sigh was exasperated. “Why, Henry? What good will it do? Bob Paris is dead.”

  “The people who killed Hugh and Aaron are still alive and free. I need someone with clout to keep the cops from shoving their
deaths into the cold case files.”

  “From what you’ve told me,” he said, “the police have no real leads.”

  “All the more reason to keep them at it,” I said.

  “When will enough be enough, Henry?” he asked softly.

  “Do this one thing for me, Grant. Get me into see Smith and whatever he says, that will be the end of it.”

  “I can’t get to Smith directly but I know the guy who runs security for him. If you can convince him it’s worth the old man’s time, he can get you in.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m going back to bed. Are you going to stay out here?”

  I downed the bourbon. “No. This should knock me out.”

  I followed him back to bed and as soon as I closed my eyes, I felt myself drifting off to sleep but, as I did, I was dimly aware that now it was Grant who was awake.

  Grant hadn’t told me how he knew Peter Barron, but I could make an educated guess from looking at the man. Barron had short-cropped hair, a carefully-trimmed moustache and, beneath the conservative gray suit, an athletic body. He was blandly handsome. His dark eyes seemed friendly at first glance but beneath the friendliness was the hard glimmer of someone used to getting what or who he wanted. A Castro clone. One of the gay men for whom San Francisco was a gay Utopia playground as long as you looked like one of them. That Grant knew him was not surprising but it still disturbed me because I didn’t think of Grant as belonging to that world. Considered objectively, though, Grant fit right in.

  “So,” Barron said in a smooth baritone. “Grant said you wanted to talk to me about Mr. Smith’s grand-nephew, Hugh Paris.”

  “I had hoped to talk to Mr. Smith himself,” I said.

  The hardness surfaced in his eyes and his voice. “Mr. Smith is a busy man but if you have information I think he needs to know, I’ll pass it on.”

  Unaccountably, now that he had dropped his friendly manner, he seemed familiar to me. Somewhere, I was sure, we had encountered each other and the meeting had not been pleasant. Still, he was my link to Smith so I needed him on my side.

  “Of course. I appreciate that, Peter. The police and the DA have been looking into Hugh’s death because there is some evidence it wasn’t an accidental overdose.”