So too had Danny lost the Josh he loved. It was more than discovering the man’s secrets. Once he might have laughed about his lover shielding a private hideaway. Everyone kept secrets. Good lord, he harbored enough of his own, each hidden away and never expressed to Josh. In all likelihood, that room meant less to Josh than Danny’s tortured childhood memories meant to him. But then Danny discovered all the details squirreled away within the folders and he listened to Josh bare his soul on those inexplicable tapes. Facts that once learned could never be ignored.
Neither Orleans nor Danny answered Colby’s rhetorical question, so Colby gave a response that they already knew he held. “We’ve stumbled into something evil. I don’t understand it, and maybe that’s all for the better. But Chip and Oliver were murdered because of something about this firm. And Josh is hiding to avoid the same fate. I know the police laugh at me. I can tell. But I don’t think you can laugh so easily. But I don’t know for sure. Maybe Josh let you in on the truth. Maybe you know what was unleashed. Maybe he figured out how to protect you.”
Danny was certain Josh had done just the opposite. After so many years, Josh ripped off his mask and forced Danny to stare at the man’s true appearance. Colby wasn’t the one in danger. It was Danny. At any moment, the snare would be drawn tight.
Neither Orleans nor Danny had any idea where Josh was, nor did Danny have any faith in anything Josh told him these past few months. For all of Josh’s talk about the dangers of Premios going under and their entire lives at risk of bankruptcy, such a view had proved to be highly melodramatic. While the company might have missed the window for a big successful public launch, the outlook for Premios currently appeared bright.
Somehow Josh made that happen. At least that’s what Orleans claimed.
Maybe that was the trap intended to lure Danny in. Within days of Josh’s talk at the New York BLINK conference and from his hidden location, Josh arranged a sale of one of his major pieces of land. The real estate deal arrived neatly wrapped up in a folder with a real bow accompanied by a transfer of several million dollars into the couple’s bank account. It came with instructions to invest the money back into Premios. Orleans was shocked. Josh never mentioned trying to sell that particular block of land, nor was she aware that a real estate company was assembling a major block of land for a new plant in the inland empire. Danny remembered how well Josh had negotiated the sale of his parents’ marshy farmland years ago to the Lattigo when they were secretly buying up the land needed for the American Seasons resort. Josh knew how the world worked.
Colby understood how the firm’s financial footing was stronger, but he didn’t care. He sputtered out what he had come to say, “Endicott-Meyers wants to sever our relationship with Premios. We don’t believe there’s a future in your business model.”
Orleans and Danny exchanged looks. She had warned Danny to expect this ultimatum. Colby had been hinting at it for days.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she countered. “Have you even looked at what’s been happening over the past month? We’ve turned the corner. Look at the growth in unique visitors and their levels of engagement. Advertisers are noticing. The aggregators have started to sign up and they’re bringing in big name brands. Revenue is way up. With the added investments that Josh and Danny placed in the firm, our projections look great. We’ll weather this storm in the market and be in a great position to go public when the timing is better. We might even be profitable by the end of the year.”
Colby pushed away the folders. Normally, Danny would have found this behavior odd, but he knew no amount of capitalistic voyeurism was sufficient to make Colby grab the bait.
“I’ve been looking around,” Colby said, “and talking to friends on Madison Avenue. I know people at Razorfish and the other big digital agencies. None of us believe what you’re seeing is anything more than a statistical blip. It’s time to pull the plug.”
Silently Danny cheered Colby on. It was time to end it. He should follow that advice himself. If he ever saw Josh again, he would make clear that their life together was over, including that part called Premios. It had come to an end. Danny should never have looked at all those papers or listened to those tapes. Josh didn’t love him. Yet for some reason, Danny felt obligated to continue to protect Josh by holding on to the files.
How had he never seen the true Josh? He thought back over a relationship filled with memories: the first time Josh kissed him when they went skating on that frozen flowage; the evening they first had sex in his parent’s house the night before the sale was finalized; the way Josh convinced him to pack up and move west and their first nights together in that tiny duplex in the Silverlake neighborhood. His mental scrapbook, once filled with beautiful moments, was dissolving into a brownish swirl of muck.
Colby was still talking. “We don’t care what you do, but I intend to stay alive. Find a candidate to buy out the Endicott-Meyers stake. We’re done.”
“Where will we find an investor? You have to give us time,” said Orleans.
“Don’t give me that. I’ve talked to Barbara Linsky. Josh asked her to find a buyer months ago. We’ve known for months that he wanted us out. Well, now we’re granting Josh his wish. Make it happen.”
Cynthia toyed with her food. The pork medallions with potato pancakes and freshly made applesauce looked delicious. It was one of Wally’s favorite recipes, first perfected at his original Loon Town Café back in Thread and long retained in the Los Angeles incarnation. When she was a waitress, she always encouraged patrons to order the dish. She chose it today thinking that its taste would somehow comfort her. But she had no appetite.
“So you’re really going back to Wisconsin?” Wally asked. He was developing a serious paunch and his hair displayed a healthy dose of grey. Both Stephen and Wally were at the table. She was the one who suggested a last lunch together. She touched her own stomach to remind herself of why she was leaving. Already starting to show, she wanted to ensure that Chip’s daughter, their child, would be born on tribal land. Her return had been delayed too long. Lingering in Los Angeles had taught her nothing and gave her no comfort.
“Do you have any theories?” Stephen asked. “I mean about what ties all this craziness together.”
“What do you mean?” she replied, although she knew exactly his intent. When she was a child, Cynthia seldom wondered how pieces fit together or why things happened the way they did. While everyone and everything fascinated her, she never felt a need to understand the connections beneath the surface but accepted everything as it was thanks to her boundless optimism. Recent events took more than Chip from her. They had also absconded with her joy.
Stephen’s question was typical of him, as the logical and serious one in this couple. Before he met Danny, Stephen ran the Van Elkind estate as their local majordomo. Stephen seldom smiled, but he noticed everything.
“There’s such a pattern of wrong-doing,” Stephen pointed out. “The police stay in their own little circles of responsibilities. Maybe they don’t want to see the linkages. But it’s obvious. All these crimes must be related to Premios and Josh. You and Chip invested in Premios, and your company is embezzled and Chip is killed. Someone breaks into Danny’s house. A major investor in Premios is found murdered in a household break-in back in Chicago. And Josh conveniently disappears. Has anyone heard from him?”
“No. I talked to Danny yesterday,” Cynthia replied, “to tell him that I was leaving tomorrow. He said there’s been no recent sign of Josh, but I have trouble getting him to say anything more.”
Even over the phone she could tell that Danny had hardened. At the same time she worried that she was allowing Jesus Lopez’s conversation at the park to influence her. No matter what Lopez insinuated, whatever connected all of these incidents, Danny was not at the heart of it. It was Josh.
“But Kenosha told me that no one has seen Josh since he was in New York to speak at the BLINK conference. Still they know he’s alive. Apparently he arranged the sale
of some property and signed over responsibility to Danny for all his legal affairs. That’s the last anyone at Premios has heard from him. I’m hoping he’s fled to protect Danny.”
“You really think he would do that?” asked Wally.
“He loves him. Of course he would.” It’s what they expected her to say, but Cynthia knew that Wally was really wondering if Josh was capable of causing all the damage. They all wanted to believe the man would do anything for Danny, but they feared they were entirely wrong in their assessment of the man.
Wally took a sip of his wine. He motioned toward Cynthia’s largely uneaten food. “You should finish that. We put it back on the menu today just for you.”
Cynthia wasn’t going to let his motherly talk distract her. “Josh and Danny have been together since 1987. I know they love each other.”
“I have no doubt that Danny loves Josh,” Wally said. He looked toward Stephen as though seeking affirmation, but his partner maintained his usual quiet stance. Wally sighed. “The thing is I’ve always distrusted Josh.”
“Really. I’ve never heard this before.”
“Remember that fall in Thread when he showed up after his parents died in that freak accident of carbon monoxide poisoning? He was so flamboyant and sought to be the center of attention wherever he went.” Wally shuddered as though recalling some memory he didn’t care to disclose. “He tried to win over everyone, even that creepy Van Elkind kid who used to torment you. Remember how he fanned that kid’s obsessions?”
Cynthia never liked to dwell on the unpleasant parts of her past. Once distasteful things were concluded she preferred to tuck them away in the recesses of her memory. The Van Elkind boy was a drug-addled, obsessed teenager, a kid that in the end she felt sorry for, like she usually did for everyone, especially after his grandmother, the matron and his guardian at the Van Elkind camp, died and he became so desolate.
Wally continued, “I always thought Josh egged on half of what that kid did. He really knew how to push the kid’s buttons. Weird in a way. And then after all these years, Josh actually goes out and buys the abandoned estate that once belonged to the kid’s family. What’s with that? Why would he want to go back there? I know that you and Chip still live in the area, but Danny and Josh never talked about northern Wisconsin. So suddenly, he drops a million or more buying a derelict mansion and restoring it. It never made sense to me.”
“Chip and I were happy when they made the purchase. We liked having them back in our lives.”
Neither Stephen nor Wally said anything. She knew what they were thinking: if Josh hadn’t bought the old camp, then maybe he would never have talked Chip into investing in Premios, and Chip might still be alive. She rubbed her stomach reflexively as though that might bring forth a genie to grant that different existence. But truthfully, both Chip and she were happy to see the two men back in the area. Chip welcomed having someone restore the old mansion. While the American Seasons complex generally propped up property prices around the lakes, few folks wanted the enormous places that were once the getaways of millionaires from Milwaukee and Chicago and the abandoned place was becoming an eyesore. Chip always considered it a good omen to have the estate shiny once again.
When she joined her two friends in one of their first walk-throughs of the abandoned place, she was enthralled. An interior decorator from Los Angeles, who had flown out to take on the restoration job, was also on hand. (That irked Cynthia’s mother, since she thought she deserved to be first in line for the design job, having once done work for the Van Elkind family.) But Josh bragged about wanting the finest, and the designer was excited about the camp’s potential. All the work was the very best.
The house had stood empty for years. While its thick log walls and double-paned windows certainly protected the interior, evidence of mice was throughout and there were raccoons in the attic. The few pieces of furniture that had been abandoned in the place were dusty and deteriorating. All in all, the place exuded a spooky air. Danny seemed subdued as though the house was haunted, but Josh was ebullient. He flung out ideas to the designer with the abandon of a kitten in catnip, gleefully rolling in his own imagination.
Stephen signaled for a server to clear the table. He recognized that Cynthia would not eat any more of her dish. “A black coffee for me,” he said to the server and then gestured for the others at the table to place their orders.
“I’m fine,” Cynthia said. She knew what was coming. Stephen always felt most at home with a coffee in hand. He wanted to add something.
Once his cup arrived, he took time swirling one sugar cube into its blackness. “I find I have to agree with Wally,” he said. “There is something troubling about Josh. Life is only about him.”
“What do you mean?” Cynthia asked.
“There came a point when we really didn’t want him involved with our restaurants any more. Certainly, he’s charming, feckless in a way, and always filled with grand ideas. I don’t deny that he’s smart and clever. But he achieves all of that with a price. He’s remarkably manipulative. You hardly know that he’s doing it, and it’s even harder to explain what he’s done. But he leaves behind a trail of bad feelings and disorder. He always gets what he want, although I must admit that usually I was never quite certain what it was he wanted.”
Cynthia wanted to shout at both of these men for their silence, but she bit her tongue, because she knew the reason. That was the laconic Wisconsin way. They never said anything. Just as Chip never mentioned to Danny how he distrusted Josh’s integrity. As a younger man, Chip was easily angered and quick to take offense at perceived slights. It took a great deal of personal constraint for him to tamp down that part of his personality. His first encounters with Josh had been testy, and Chip always feared that he never released his early resentments and so he gave Josh the benefit of the doubt. Everyone was always willing to forgive Josh for actions that might doom others.
But Cynthia never felt those vibes. The few times that Chip and she discussed his assessment of Josh, she quickly dismissed his concerns. All that mattered to her was that Danny was happy.
“I know that Josh wasn’t always the most sincere,” she said, “but did you ever see him do anything that would make you believe he’s capable of such horrible events?”
“I could list many things,” Stephen said, “but everything I would tell you would seem superficial. It would also make me look petty.”
Wally nodded his head in agreement.
Stephen continued, “But here’s one example of what I mean. Josh was always good at talking to our customers. He has a knack for knowing what people want to hear, and he gives them what they want. But I always felt his customer interactions were a ploy to prompt our guests to open up and disclose something that they might otherwise keep hidden. He liked to collect secrets.”
“He never forgot anything,” Wally added.
“And it wasn’t just that he remembered it all. He looked for ways to use it maliciously. We had this well-connected Hollywood producer who frequently dined with us. Most of the time his companion wasn’t his wife, and we assumed he was sleeping with most of the young women who ate at his table. But a restaurant booth is like a church confessional. What happens in them stays there.
“Josh knew that. But one night—it was still in our early days when Josh worked as a host—he walked over to the man’s table. It was on a night when he was actually eating with his wife. Josh made a point of welcoming the man, and then dropped a comment about he hoped to see him back with his beautiful daughter again. Because the wife was quick to assume that the dinner had been with some fling, she straightened her back and her face flared with anger. The husband’s mood darkened, and Josh immediately backtracked about confusing the man with another guest. But the damage was done. I saw Josh’s face when he turned to walk back to the reservations desk. It bore a look of triumph. He deliberately provoked that discord. Of course, I couldn’t prove it, and there was no rational reason why he would want to do it, es
pecially since we never saw that particular man again. And he had been a big spender. But I think Josh did it just for the pleasure of doing it.” Stephen wrapped his story with the finality of a lawyer’s summation.
“He did it because he’s twisted,” Wally added.
“Even if all that is true, and I’m sure it is, isn’t it quite a leap to what we’re imagining? Are you saying Josh set in motion a plot to kill both a good friend and a major investor? Why?” Cynthia wanted someone to blame for her loss, and Josh could be that person, but it had to make sense.
Neither man could offer her that explanation.
But as she looked around the table, one nagging thought troubled Cynthia and she had to express it. “How is it possible that Danny didn’t see this?”
The hidden room was comforting. Danny could understand why Josh liked it and now often wondered, because he was a sound sleeper, if there had been nights when his lover would get out of bed, walk down the several flights of stairs, and work in this room. Although Danny couldn’t ever recall not being able to find Josh in the house, it was clear the room had been often used.
Now Danny spent too much time in the hideaway, and he didn’t understand why. Night after night, year after year, he slept next to a man who kept so many secrets. They rose together, took turns showering, drank coffee, read the paper, went to work, watched television, made love, and kissed each other good night—all without ever really knowing one other. Josh could have asked him anything, and Danny would have answered as truthfully as possible. But not Josh. Instead, this man obsessed over plots and goals.
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