I shook my head. "Not at all." I leaned against the counter and folded my arms. "Let me put it to you straight, Ros." My words could have sounded harsh but my voice was soft.
She blinked a couple of times and nodded.
"None of us knows how to do this thing that we're doing. None of us have done it. I don't know anyone, no one alive anyway, who's done what we're doing. We're just being ourselves, I guess you could say. It's strange. Most people react just like you'd think. They're disgusted and don't want anything to do with us. Or they have religious objections. Some people are kind. Sometimes it's because of the money. But most of the time it's because they're just decent folks, that's all."
She said, "Let's sit at the table."
I followed her lead and sat down at the small, round kitchen table but I decided to sit across from her instead of next to her. I wanted to give both of us plenty of room. "Did you know about my mother?"
"No."
"She left us when I was about 7. She thought she had cancer and didn't want us, my sister and me, to see her die."
Ros looked surprised. "My goodness."
I nodded. "A few months ago, I found some letters from her which had been hidden from my father. It turned out that our housekeeper had been poisoning her with arsenic."
Ros's eyes opened wide with astonishment.
"It's a long story, but back in March, Carter and I went to Vermont and met the people who'd known my mother at the end. She did end up dying from cancer in '48. There was a man in Vermont who she'd been very much in love with. His name is Ed and I like to think of him as my stepfather, even though they never married." As I took a deep breath, I saw a wave of recognition pass over her face. I wondered what that meant. "He really helped me put all of this in perspective. He told me something my mother had told him about how most men who got upset about who Carter and I are did so because they felt threatened in some way. He told me that because I was concerned about how he felt staying with us, at our house. Nothing seemed to bother him. And he said that it didn't."
Ros said, "I'm so sorry to hear all of this, Nick. I had no idea." She reached her hand across the table and I took it for a moment. "So, your mother was alive all that time and you never knew?"
I nodded. "She kept trying to get in touch with my father. She didn't want to just show up on the doorstep, unannounced—"
"Like in My Favorite Wife—"
I smiled and nodded. "Right. After some time passed, I think she decided that my father didn't want her back. So, she ended up settling in a small town in Vermont."
Ros dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. "I'm sorry, Nick. To think of not seeing Freddie or Lance again..." She waved me away and blew her nose.
"I know. But, for some reason, it all makes sense."
Shaking her head, she said, "I can't see how but, if it does to you, then, I guess that's all that matters." She sighed. "But that's not what you wanted to tell me, is it?"
"No. After Ed and I had that talk about why these things bother people, it got me to thinking. I began to realize how much I'd been breezing through the last two years as if not much of anything had happened. One night, I was thinking about that night and all the things which happened afterward and it was like it was happening all over again but now I was feeling angry and afraid. There was too much happening back then for me to have much time for any of that. I guess it's kinda like shell shock."
Ros nodded. "I can see that. You just had to go about the business of your life and you didn't have time to be scared or upset."
"Yeah. That's about it. Until the story about my mother came to light." I swallowed and sat for a moment as the tears came up again. I looked around the kitchen for a moment and then said, "The point is that I'm not being a saint when I tell you that I understand it's hard to be around us. Sometimes I have a hard time with it myself and I'm just now coming to understand that."
Ros frowned and leaned back in her chair. She folded her arms and looked at me for a couple of minutes. I waited because it's what I was good at.
Finally, she lifted up her chin, put her left hand underneath it, and said, "Well, I'll be damned, Nick Williams. I'm with you, through thick or thin. And if you wanna go make those tawdry movies, well, you go right ahead. I'm not gonna like them any more than I like how tight your clothes are and how you didn't have the courtesy to wear a coat to dinner." She grinned at me for a moment.
I laughed. "Sorry about that. We packed for Ensenada."
She stood and I followed suit. Holding her head to the side, she stroked her chin with her left hand and asked, "Are we still friends?"
I nodded, walked over, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Of course."
She smiled. "Good." She pushed her chair in and said, "You better get to scrubbing those dishes. They're not going to wash themselves." With that, she walked off into the living room with a laugh.
Chapter 7
The Beverly Hills Hotel
Sunday, July 10, 1955
Later that evening
"What were y'all talking about in the kitchen?" That was Carter. We were in bed back at the bungalow. I had my head on his chest.
"I told Ros she'd convinced me that Monumental was the right thing to do."
"I bet she didn't like that."
"Not a bit. She told me that she thought I could farm Ben out and I told her no one would touch him. Then we started talking about something else."
"What?"
"I'm not sure."
"What does that mean?"
I sighed. "Remember a few weeks ago when I sat on the Chesterfield all night and didn't get much sleep?"
"Sure."
"Remember what I told you?"
"You said you were sitting there feeling angry and sad about everything that's happened since Janet died. And how it wasn't the fact that she was dead or that we'd seen where your mother was buried but it was something else. I remember."
"I've been thinking more about that."
"And?"
"And it has something to do with our announcing to the world about who we are. That we're homosexuals."
Carter put his big hand on my back and began to run it up and down. "Is that still bothering you?"
"Still?" I asked.
"Yeah. You told me about this before. That it bothers you."
"I did?"
"Sure. The next day, in fact."
"Huh. I don't remember that."
"You were tired, son."
"I guess I was."
We lay there for a long moment without saying anything. Finally, Carter asked, "Is that what you and Ros talked about?"
"Not in detail. But in a way. She told me how uncomfortable the details of our lives made her."
"Of course. We don't ask about her and Freddie."
"No, that's not what I mean. They have a wedding photo on the wall, so we know so much about them that they never have to tell us." I paused and thought for a moment. "I still don't know how to talk about this. It's like we need a language we don't have."
"How so?"
"Why is it OK for us to know about Ros and Freddie? They have a wedding photo. She has a ring on her finger. So does he. They have Lance, so we know something about their intimate life by the evidence. Why don't we get to talk about ours? And why does the thought of doing so make us uncomfortable?"
Carter quietly laughed. He lifted up my left hand. "You have a ring on your finger."
"No one asks me about it." Carter had given me the ring back in '53 in Ensenada. It was too small for my ring finger, so I wore it on my pinkie. He'd proposed to me on the beach. It had been a very sweet moment.
"Of course they don't." He thought for a moment and then said, "Besides, all of that makes you uncomfortable, not me."
I lifted up my head and looked at him. "It doesn't?"
"Hell, no. Never has. I don't talk about it with anyone other than you because it's no one's business but our own. But if Mike missed a sweep and someone was able to bug our bedro
om at home and then those tapes were released to the papers, I wouldn't really care."
I frowned. "I don't believe you."
He raised an eyebrow at me and pulled himself up against the headboard. "You don't?"
I sat up and crossed my legs, facing him. "I don't."
He shrugged.
"So, you're telling me you wouldn't mind it if someone else, like your mother, knew how we act at night and what we get up to?"
Carter shook his head at me slowly as if I were five years old. "No, son, I wouldn't. Hell, what do you think makes everyone, including my mother, uncomfortable? It's what they're imagining. And it hasn't been that long since women were supposed to retire to the country for the duration because those stuffy old Victorians were too refined to see a woman pregnant."
I sat there and looked at him. "You're serious?"
He nodded. "I am."
I looked above his head for a long moment. "Well, I guess the best I can say is good for you because it still makes my skin crawl."
Carter grinned slightly and asked, "Why did you kiss me at the Top of the Mark that night?"
I shrugged. "I dunno."
His grin widened.
"OK. It was because I loved you." And I did. I could feel it right there as if it were happening all over again. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life. Suddenly, I remembered something. "Hey! Wait a minute! You kissed me."
Carter leaned over and did so again, lingering as he did. Putting his forehead against mine, he whispered, "You're right. I did. But when you thought you had kissed me, just for that few seconds, you weren't ashamed, were you?"
I kissed him back, tasting the Colgate in his mouth. "You're right, Chief. When you're right, you're right."
He pulled me in and said, "Let me remind you how right I am about a few other things."
. . .
We were flying down to Rio. Carter was in the pilot seat and I was walking around the cabin, looking down at the jungle-covered mountains and watching the scenery go by. It seemed to me that we were just a little too close and I tried to make my way to the cockpit to tell him. But, as I did, the plane began to climb. It seemed like it was going straight up. That's when I realized I was really climbing up the ladder in the middle of a ship at sea. I was only wearing a pair of BVDs and my dog tags. I kept climbing and climbing, looking for the hatch that would let me out onto the deck but I never seemed to reach it. The metal on the ladder was getting awfully hot and I could hear a bell ringing. I wondered if that meant there was a fire on the ship somewhere when suddenly I heard someone call my name.
"Nick?"
I sat up in the bed and looked around in the dark, confused for a moment.
"Nick." That was Carter. He was holding the receiver of the telephone in his hand.
"What?"
"It's for you. It's Ben." He handed me the phone.
"Yeah?"
"Nick, you gotta help me."
"What's up?"
"They've arrested Carlo for William's murder."
"Carlo?"
"Yeah. The deputies just left."
"What deputies?"
"From the county. What should I do?"
"Sit tight and let me make some calls. Did they mention why they were arresting him?"
"No. They just took him away." Ben started sniffing at the other end of the phone.
"It's going to be OK. He didn't do it."
"No. You do believe that, don't you?"
"Of course, I do. Look, Ben, sit tight. Let me make some calls and then we'll come over there. How about that?"
Ben sniffed again. "That'd be good. Thanks, Nick."
"You're welcome." I handed the phone to Carter who put it back on the receiver.
"Why?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I dunno. Maybe fingerprints on the knife? That's the only reason I can imagine." I jumped out of bed and began to rifle through my coat to find my little book. "I'm gonna start with Kenneth Wilcox and then see where we go from there."
. . .
"Hello?"
"Kenneth?"
"No, it's Ben." Kenneth Wilcox was our lawyer. Ben, another Ben, was Benjamin Ross. He was also our lawyer. They were partners in business and lovers at home. They'd met when Carter and I had been arrested in Sausalito. Benjamin was brought in to help Kenneth and it had been love at first sight.
"Sorry to wake you up. We have a problem. Carlo Martinelli, who works for us down here in L.A. has been arrested for murder."
"Did he do it?" Ben was always direct.
"Nope."
"Where can we reach you?"
I told him and he promised to call back in a few minutes.
. . .
"Nick? This is Kenneth."
"Good morning. Sorry to bother you with this."
"Not at all. I called a lawyer friend of mine down there. He'll meet you at the Hall of Justice at 8. Arraignments usually start at 9. His name is John J. Gilbraith. He's a long bean pole of a guy. Taller than Carter. He told me that since I last saw him, he's started wearing a Van Dyke beard, so it should be easy to spot him. He's one of us and does a lot of the same kind of defense work as Ben and I do."
"Police raids?"
"Yes."
"But what about murder?"
"He's going to find someone else for that. But he'll ask for a preliminary hearing. He says that, for murder, the hearing should be scheduled for next Monday, unless there's a squeeze on the docket."
"Fine."
"And he knows you're picking up the tab and that the sky's the limit." Kenneth laughed.
"Fine. Thanks, Kenneth."
"Sure. When will you be back?"
"Don't know now."
"Didn't the murder happen in Beverly Hills?"
"Yeah."
"Be careful. That chief of police has a reputation. He likes to get in the spotlight. With you and Carter around, you're giving him a nest of homosexuals and all that jazz."
"I know. We'll be careful."
"Right," he said dryly. "Well, when you get into trouble, let me know and my Ben and I will come down and bail you out."
I laughed into the phone and said, "Will do."
Chapter 8
4643 Los Feliz Blvd, Apt. 17-A
Los Angeles, Cal.
Monday, July 11, 1955
Half past 5 in the morning
It was half past 5 when the cab dropped us off in front of the apartment building where Ben and Martinelli lived. We walked into the foyer and made our way up to the second floor. We'd been to their apartment the previous January so we knew where to go. It was at the end of a long hallway.
I quietly knocked on the door marked as 17-A. As we waited, Carter said, "I hope—"
Right then, Ben opened the door. He looked tired and his eyes were swollen from crying. Much to my surprise, he pulled me into a hug and said, "Thanks for coming, Nick. I don't know what we would do without you."
I patted him on the back and kissed him on the cheek. "Of course, Ben. We're family."
He pulled back, looked up at Carter, and said, "Thanks, Carter."
Reaching around me, Carter squeezed Ben's shoulder. "Of course. Got any coffee?"
Ben nodded and turned around. We followed him into the small living room. He said, "Come on into the kitchen and I'll let you make it how you like it."
. . .
Once we had our coffee, we sat down in the living room. I said, "I talked to Kenneth Wilcox up in the City. He has a friend who's a local lawyer. His name is John Gilbraith. He'll meet us at the Hall of Justice at 8. The first thing that's going to happen is he'll meet with Carlo and get as much information as he can. The arraignment will be at 9. Mr. Gilbraith will ask for a preliminary hearing. Kenneth thinks the hearing could be as soon as next Monday."
Ben's eyes widened. "Next Monday?"
I nodded. Ben had been a cop, not a particularly good one, but I at least had expected him to remember how arraignments worked. I then remembered how he was probab
ly never involved in a homicide case. His captain tended to keep him on a short leash, from what I remembered.
"What about bail?"
I managed not to roll my eyes. As a cop, he should have known the answer. "Ben, there's no bail for capital crimes in California."
He nodded. "Of course. I knew that. Sorry."
I shook my head. "It's OK. So, what we need to do between now and 8 is go over what you know so we can tell Mr. Gilbraith as much as possible before he talks to Carlo."
Ben shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. Carlo didn't do it. He was with me the whole time."
"What whole time?"
"From the time we dropped William off at his apartment yesterday morning until the deputies came to arrest him."
I nodded. "Tell me about Saturday night and Sunday morning."
Ben nodded. "I was over at the soundstage on Saturday, all day. William was on the call list for noon and he never showed up. Jessup was going to shoot one of the dance numbers. William didn't come in until the final third. It was a complicated piece which could be filmed in three pieces and then edited together, so that's what we worked on. Originally, Jessup wanted to shoot William in the afternoon. The second unit, that's the other camera crew, were setting up in Griffith Park to do the outdoor part of a fantasy sequence involving William and the other lead, Laura Parks. They wanted to get the afternoon light in a very specific way. When William didn't show at noon and hadn't arrived by 3, I sent Laura home and called the second unit and told them to break down and come back to the soundstage. They did. We finished with the dancers around 7 and everyone went home. I got here by 8. Carlo and I made dinner and ate. William's apartment is in this building. It's 14-A and it's just down the hall. We kept going down there and knocking on the door and getting no response. Finally, around 10, I took my key and we walked into the apartment. The place was a mess, as usual, and we didn't find any clue as to where he might be."
"Why do you have a key?"
"Because the apartment is in my name. I figured it would be easier that way."
"Do you still have the key?"
He nodded.
"Give it to me."
He frowned. "Why?"
The Pitiful Player (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 14) Page 6