Boxley himself bordered on being ample in girth, fortyish like everybody in gay media seemed to be, fashionably micro-whiskered, and with milky blue eyes. Taibi was slender and clean-shaven, a little younger, with glossy brown lips and a golden hoop earring.
The waitress came over, and Boxley ordered a mimosa and Taibi a glass of Chablis. I asked for a beer and a club sandwich. The others, being on Pacific time and not weak with hunger, said they’d eat later.
I said, “Tell me all about Hal and Rover. They sound like quite a pair.”
This produced so much eye rolling I could almost feel motion sickness coming on.
“If there are two skuzzier characters in the industry, I can’t imagine who they are,” Boxley said.
Taibi added, “And that’s saying a lot.”
“Hal fucks people over and then brags about it. I know a photographer who did work for Bugger, and the company owed him eighteen K. Somebody heard Hal laughing about it and telling Ogden Winkleman that the photographer had missed his deadline by an hour and ten minutes, and the guy could go fuck himself. He never got paid.”
Taibi said, “There was a writer selling his book to the company for a film, and they offered the guy two-hundred-fifty dollars. When the writer complained about being ripped off for his life’s work, Hal told Winkleman to go tell the guy to take his faggoty novel and try selling it to George Cukor, but he shouldn’t get his hopes up because George Cukor has been dead for nearly thirty years.”
“Faggot is one of Hal’s favorite epithets,” Boxley said. “He uses it about every thirty seconds. This is a guy who sees himself as a major player in gay America, but his contempt for gay people is total.”
“You don’t have to know him to understand that,” Taibi said. “You just have to look at his programming.”
“I have. So all that uninteresting hokey stuff is on purpose?”
“Hal thinks if you hang a gay-friendly sign on something, it doesn’t matter if it’s a piece of shit,” Boxley said. “This is his idea of gay progress.”
“Skutnik sounds awful,” I said. “So how come you guys went to work for him?”
They both looked glum.
“Only gay game in town,” Boxley said. “There’s Brand Gay, yeah, but they’re more New York-based and not all that wonderful either. The place isn’t run by a psycho, just tight-assed corporate types.”
“Brand Gay does seem to have been designed by focus groups composed of somewhat dim people,” I said.
Our drinks arrived and we all availed ourselves.
“We’d have stuck it out at HLM,” Taibi said, “hoping that Hal would become less hands on and some talented people might be brought in, even if only accidentally. But we both got bounced at the same time last year, and now we look back and consider ourselves blessed. No more hissy fits from Hal, no more mind games from Ogden, no more having to deal with Rover’s dumb-ass programming ideas that he comes up with whenever he’s stoned, which is most of the time.”
“May I ask why you were both fired?”
More eye rolling. I held on to the table.
“Hal had surveillance cameras installed in the office,” Boxley said. “Just like Ogden had done in New York. Unfortunately, we both forgot about them. I took a day off without asking anybody when my sister was visiting from New Hampshire and Hal was in New York. Hal looked at the tapes when he got back and saw that I was gone and started screaming that I was stealing from the company and I was lucky he didn’t call the police. He told me to get out of his sight, and he never wanted to lay eyes on me again.”
“My case was similar,” Taibi said, “but a little bit embarrassing. One day I was checking out some porn on my computer, and I made the mistake of actually taking my dick out and…you know. Fuck, there it was on the tape. Not a lot of detail, but clear enough. Hal started screaming that I could be spreading disease in the office, and I should get out of his sight and he never wanted to lay eyes on me again, and I was lucky he didn’t call the police about me jerking off on HLM’s office furniture.”
I said, “This place sounds like its personnel policies were formulated by some satanic combination of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.”
They laughed lightly. Taibi said, “Maybe they were. A lot of people think Ogden is actually straight and works for Hey Look because he’s been fired everywhere else. He’s always talking about cocks and asses and ‘gittin’ a little,’ as he calls it, but when he goes on like that it sounds like George Romney talking about grits. It feels totally phony. Ogden was brought into the company for his management expertise, supposedly, but that’s a joke. The place is always in chaos. Luckily, Ogden is in New York most of the time, so people out here only have to deal with Hal the psychopath and Rover the dope fiend.”
“I understand that you were two of Eddie Wenske’s sources for his research on gay media.”
“Eddie was great,” Boxley said. “He found all these horrors fascinating, and we could tell he was really going to do a job on HLM. We told him everything we knew, and so did ten or twelve other people who’d been screwed by Hal.”
“Were there any people he might have interviewed who would have said nice things about HLM?”
“If it was in the office, the marketing and promotion people, sure. But then they’d slip Eddie their phone numbers and meet him after work and unload. I know several situations where this was the case.”
“So he actually came to the office?”
“He wanted to get a feel for the place,” Taibi said, “and naturally he had to interview Hal to get his take on things.”
“Any good journalist would.”
My club sandwich arrived and I went at it.
“They were in Hal’s office for an hour and a half one day,” Boxley said, “and I could hear Hal yelling. Eddie told a bunch of us afterwards that Hal apparently wasn’t used to having anybody challenge his ideas or seem to disagree with him. He went ape shit when Eddie suggested that the reason so few people watched HLM was the poor quality of the programming. Hal said most gay people don’t care about the quality of the programming, that gay men just want to look at tight asses and big pecs and that gay women only watched ESPN and they weren’t big spenders anyway.”
“It was hard for Hal to take this abuse from Wenske,” Taibi said, “because Hal actually knew who Wenske was and respected him. Hal had read Notes from the Bush when he was younger and, like everybody else, thought it was wonderful. I mean, how could anybody not?”
“Eddie never mentioned it,” Boxley said, “but Rover told us afterwards that Hal asked Eddie if he’d be interested in having a film made of the book. They’d get Mason Hively, who worked on Dark Smooches, to write and direct it. Eddie was supposed to be impressed with that—that’s all Hal knows—but of course Eddie said not a chance. Actually, Rover told us, Eddie told Hal no thank you, but what Hal heard was, not a chance in hell, go fuck yourself. It was soon after that that Eddie’s interview with Hal came to an abrupt halt.”
“So Skutnik actually has some taste and intelligence? If he appreciated Wenske’s book, good for him.”
“He’d have fucked it up, believe me. Mason Hively is a hack writer and a hack director. Have you seen Dark Smooches?”
“Some of it, once, briefly.”
“As a writer, Mason sees himself as a kind of gay Stieg Larsson. But the guy does crystal meth and is unbalanced. He actually wanted to do a film called The Boy with the Dragon Tattoo. A total rip-off of Larsson that legal said no to. Which surprised a lot of us, because legal says okay to just about anything Hal wants to do. He believes their job is finding legal justification for him to do whatever the fuck he feels like doing.”
I said, “Back in New York, some HLM people have heard rumors of financial funny business at the company, maybe even including swindling of investors. Do you know anything about this?”
They were quiet for a moment.
“I’ve heard that,” Boxley said.
Taibi said, “Rumors, ye
s.”
“The company has been sued umpteen times and has always settled, sometimes for large amounts, we’ve heard. That put a drain on capital. Back in early January, there was a panic, in fact. A lot of people were let go and there was a week when nobody at the company got paid at all. Their next paychecks were supposed to be double, but it never happened. If people bring it up, Hal starts screaming, so people don’t bother to ask anymore.”
Taibi said, “The crunch seems to be over for now. Hal must have lured in some more suckers to invest in the company, but he isn’t saying who they are.”
I asked, “Do you have any idea if Eddie Wenske found out much about HLM’s financing?”
“I had the feeling he knew more than he let on to Robert and me,” Taibi said. “I think he might have found a source in the company that was dishing the monetary dirt.”
“What made you think that?”
“Just that he said one time that when he was in law school he wished he’d studied more tax law and business law and not so much constitutional law. They would have come in handy when he got around to researching HLM.”
“Do you have any idea who this well-informed source in the company might be?”
“Don’t know,” Boxley said. “The only people who know where the HLM bodies are buried are Hal, Ogden, Scott Sanders in legal, and of course Martine and Danielle. Scott totally kisses Hal’s ass.”
“Not in the literal sense,” Boxley said, “Scott being straight.”
“And Martine and Danielle worked for Hal’s father in the lumber business up north, and they are loyal family retainers who would never besmirch the Skutnik family name by blabbing about anything questionable that goes on with the books.”
“And Wenske would have interviewed all of these people when he was out here? Or tried to?”
Taibi said, “I doubt any of them would have been willing to talk to Eddie. Not without clearing it with Hal, which was not going to happen.”
“I take it,” I said, “that nobody you know out here has any theories as to what’s become of Wenske?”
Boxley said, “When word got back here that Wenske was missing, there were jokes about how Hal had him killed because Wenske had disrespected him in his own office. But seriously, that’s not Hal’s style. He’ll lie and rob and cheat, but not kill. He doesn’t have to. So, no, Eddie’s disappearance is as much a mystery to us as it is to you and his friends back east.”
“Are you aware,” I asked, “that Boo Miller in the HLM New York office is also missing now? Or was as of a couple of days ago. He was one of Wenske’s sources.”
They stared at me.
I described the events of the past five days, including the murder of Bryan Kim, Wenske’s sometime boyfriend, and the disappearance of Boo Miller, who’d gone to Boston to meet with Kim and me.
Boxley said, “Fuck.”
Taibi said, “Holy shit.”
“None of this may have any connection to Wenske or to HLM. But it might.”
“But that just happened?” Boxley said.
“Over the weekend.”
“So probably they’re not connected. This stuff just took place, but Wenske has been missing for a month.”
“Almost two,” I said.
“No, just one. Today is March twenty-eighth, and I’m sure I saw Eddie out here in late February.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My nine o’clock appointment, Nate Gomez, had seen Wenske even more recently, around the first of March, he told me. We met in Gomez’s apartment near UCLA because he still worked for Hey Look Media and could not take the chance of being seen in public with me. By nine, I was starting to feel the jet lag but got by on coffee and declined to share the reefer Gomez fired up soon after my arrival in his airy digs with a nice view of the leafy college campus.
“You actually talked to Wenske this month?” I asked.
“We had Thai take-out here in the apartment, and I confirmed a lot of the hideous stories he’d heard by then from pissed-off HLM people. Eddie is a really serious journalist, checking details with multiple sources. I was impressed by how careful he was.”
“And this couldn’t have happened earlier in February or even back in December?”
“I just checked my calendar, and it was definitely March first.”
Gomez was long and lean and had a long lean nose to go with the rest of him and large black eyes. He was stretched out on his couch in gym gear under a blown-up poster of Barbara Stanwyck with her Double Indemnity ankle bracelet.
“I got the idea,” Gomez said, “that Eddie planned on being around L.A. for a while longer. I was really surprised when—it must have been a couple of weeks later—that people were saying he had disappeared and his family and friends were really worried about him.”
“Did he mention who he was interviewing next?”
“No, but I know he was staying with a newspaper guy he knew from Boston.”
“Paul Delaney?”
“I think so. Yes, Paul something.”
I had tried phoning Delaney earlier in the evening, but he didn’t answer and his voice mail box was still full.
I said, “I know that even beyond HLM’s crappy programming and obnoxious bosses, Wenske was digging into the company’s murky finances. Did he talk about that with you?”
“No, but he wouldn’t have necessarily. I’m with media relations, and all I know about HLM finances is that I didn’t get paid for a week in January, and I’ve gotten paid every week since then. You hear shit, but you would never, ever ask. If you even hinted to anybody that something funny might be going on finances-wise, Hal would find out about it, and he would sue you for character defamation. Or he might just come into your office and overturn your desk.”
“So Skutnik has been known to turn violent?”
“Just yelling and screaming. He doesn’t carry a gun, as far as I know, just a big set of lungs.”
“I don’t suppose you’re aware of this, Nate, but as far as I know, you’re the last person to have seen Eddie Wenske before he disappeared.”
“Shit. Really?”
“So he was here in your place—when? On the evening of March first?”
“Yeah. For a couple of hours. He probably left around nine.”
“Do you know where he was going when he left here?”
Gomez took a toke on his weed—I was enjoying the scratchy aroma—and said, “I do happen to know.” He had a funny little smile as he said it.
“Yeah?”
“He was going to the Melrose Spa.”
“The somewhat seedy gay bathhouse dating back to the twelfth century?”
“I told him if he needed a little attention in that department, I’d be happy to help him out. Have you met Eddie?”
“No. Just his family.”
“He’s a hottie. It would have been fun for me, and I feel confident enough that it would have been enjoyable for Eddie too. But he said he liked to keep sex compartmentalized and he never mixed it in with his work. He liked to stay focused when he was writing or researching. And if he wasn’t in a relationship and just needed to get his tubes cleared he’d go to a bathhouse or peep show where you can watch the videos and get a blow job and then walk out relieved and minus any mental complications. I took the rejection a little personally at the time, but after I thought about it, it made sense. You know?”
“It fits with what I’ve heard about Wenske.”
“That could have been just a line. Being polite. But I don’t think so.”
“I don’t either. It’s how I think too. About work.”
Gomez laughed. “You’re sure you don’t want a little of this good weed?”
“No, thank you.”
“As you wish, Donald.”
“So Wenske’s last known location before he vanished was the Melrose Baths? That’s unnerving. But I don’t suppose he met somebody there and went home with him. That’s not what he was looking for.”
“No, he told me he had an off-a
gain-on-again boyfriend back in Boston, but the guy was driving him around the bend with his inability to commit. They were going to give it one more try, Eddie said, but he wasn’t all that optimistic. Anyway, he liked his work and his family and friends, and if he wanted to get off there were plenty of other ways to do that. It sounded as if he was one of those guys who’d go to the baths and be in and out in forty-five minutes.”
I said, “It’s an extreme type of compartmentalization that works well for the people for whom it works well.”
“It’s not for me,” Gomez said. “I like love and affection. Want it, need it, thrive on it.”
“But you’re single at the moment?”
“Yes and no. James is in Afghanistan. It’s his third tour.”
“Oh.”
“He’ll be home July twenty-third if all goes as planned. Though we’ve thought that before.”
“Rough.”
“You’ll never know.”
“No.”
“It’s why I stick it out at HLM. It’s a rotten place to work, but I need stability in my life. James will be out of work when he gets home and goes back into the reserves. He’s a machinist, and the economy being what it is, it might be a while before he finds a job.”
“Right.”
“There’s a soldier James met on Kabul who’s in a similar situation, and they commiserate. Well, more than commiserate. Which is fine. I’m basically monogamous, but I like to tell myself it’s a sacrifice I’m making for my country.”
“War is complex.”
“What’s interesting is, this guy, Steve, is married with three young kids back in San Diego. He says he’s straight and James believes him.”
“Uh oh.”
“I mean, how straight can he be?”
“But James says it’s not serious? Their relationship? Whatever it is.”
“He says it’s just to help get them through the deployment.”
“Understandable. It’s commendable, I guess, that James told you about this, right? He’s being honest and up front.”
The Last Thing I Saw Page 10