1 Runaway Man (6 page)

It was past eleven o’clock by the time I got there. Chris would be soaking up Roman history in Chichester Hall. An Asian kid with round glasses directed me across the quad to a stone building next to the bell tower. I set my duffel on an ice-encrusted bench there and sat atop it, my nose buried in
Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood
by the late actress Evelyn Keyes who, I swear, shtupped everyone in Tinseltown
except
Scarlett O’Hara. When Chris’s class was over, the door to Chichester Hall opened and students came pouring out. Chris was walking with a slender, gorgeous Middle Eastern girl. He wasn’t a particularly big guy. Not much taller than I. He wore a vintage tweed topcoat over a fisherman’s knit sweater, chalk-striped suit trousers and lumberjack boots.

“Hey, it’s Chris, am I right?” I slung my duffel over my shoulder and started toward him, grinning. “The Beefer told me—just look for the guy with blond hair who’s walking with the best-looking girl on campus.”

“Yeah, I’m Chris,” he acknowledged, affably enough. The girl just looked right through me. “And you are?…”

“His cousin Benji? Benji Golden? He said to look him up when I got to town.” I’d eased into a slightly more adolescent upspeak. “I’ve texted him, like, six times in the past two days but I haven’t heard back. I stopped by your residence hall, Hudson, but nobody seems to know where he is. I thought
you
might know.”

Chris stood there nodding his head. “Sure, sure.”

“I must be going,” the girl said to him coolly.

They exchanged a hug before she walked away. He watched her go, beaming, before he turned back to me. “So you’re Bruce’s cousin?”

“
Benji.
The Beefer hasn’t mentioned me?”

“He may have, bro. Just doesn’t ring a bell. Where do you go?”

“Binghamton? I’m studying film up there. Or I was. Just decided to take this semester off. Or I should say
they
decided on account of I still owe them my tuition money from last year. Thought I’d Kerouac around before I head back to the West Coast. My folks live out there. Sherman Oaks? Believe, I am in no hurry to go back. The Beefer said I could crash on your residence hall sofa for a couple of nights.”

“I wish I could help you but I don’t know anything about it.”

“Well, this sucks. Do you know where he is?”

“Bruce … isn’t here right now. He’s left campus.”

“No way!
I’m
the designated family fuckup. What’s going down?”

“It’s kind of complicated.” Chris ran a hand through his unruly blond curls. “Have you eaten lunch yet?”

He led me out the main gate to a bustling pizzeria called Rico’s. The legend of Charles Willingham lived large in there. Every inch of wall space was lined with framed
New York Daily News
and
New York Post
back page headlines crowing about Charles In Charge and the magical Canterbury Tale. An authentic replica of his green No. 11 jersey was hanging behind the cash register along with several autographed photos of Charles standing behind that very counter with his big arms wrapped around the owner and his wife.

We ordered meatball heroes and Cokes at the counter and grabbed ourselves a table. Then Chris excused himself and headed for the men’s room, pulling his cell phone from his coat pocket. No doubt reaching out to Sara, who would be on her lunch break at school, if my timing was right.

Our sandwiches were ready when he returned. Chris insisted on paying for them, took off his coat and flopped down across from me. “Sara says you’re her favorite cousin in the whole family. The coolest of the cool.”

“That’s my Sara.” I bit into my hero, which was huge and tasty. “Were you checking up on me or something?”

“Had to, bro,” he said apologetically.

I lowered my voice. “You mean because of Charles?”

He looked at me in surprise. “You know about Charles?”

“Totally.”

Chris chomped on his hero, shaking his head. “I don’t get this. I’ve roomed with Bruce for two years. How come he’s never mentioned you?”

“He compartmentalizes his life. But I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

“He’s a private guy,” he acknowledged. “Still hasn’t told his parents that he’s gay. He’s pretty positive they won’t be able to deal.”

“But you’re okay with it, right?”

“Of course. I have lots of gay friends.”

“He’s been e-mailing me about Charles for months. I’m kind of his sounding board.”

“Why is that?”

“Take a wild guess.”

Chris swallowed some of his Coke, studying me. “You’re gay, too.”

“Doink.” I munched on my hero, not rushing the guy. That was one of the first things my dad taught me: Never seem anxious. “So where did he go? And do
not
tell me home to Willoughby because Sara would have said so.”

“I can’t say, Benji. It’s nothing personal. He asked me not to tell anyone.”

“Sure, I understand. You made a promise. I can respect that.” I ate some more of my hero and sipped my Coke. “Your parents have a place on Candlewood Lake, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they do.”

“Pretty quiet up there this time of year, I’m guessing.”

“Real quiet,” he said, his eyes avoiding mine.

“Damn, Chris, don’t ever play high stakes poker. You’ll lose your shirt, your pants.…”

He ducked his head. “You’re right. I totally suck at the lying thing.”

“You did okay on the phone last night with my uncle.”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Sara told me.”

Chris ran a hand through his mop of hair. “I loaned Bruce my keys to the guest cottage. But no one’s supposed to know, okay?”

“Not even Sara?”

“Not even Sara. He’s turned off his cell. The landline’s off the hook. He just really wants some alone time to get his head straight. Charles is playing Syracuse tonight. After tomorrow morning’s shoot-around he’ll be joining Bruce up there. The team has a mandatory three-day lay off for the Gauntlet.”

“For the what?”

“It’s a Canterbury tradition. Began as a sadistic pop quiz in some Greek history professor’s class back in the twenties. Over the years it’s been ritualized into this campus-wide round of nut crunchers. They’re next week, and they get weighed almost as heavily as finals, so no basketball practice or any other activities. You just hit the books. Charles and Bruce will be hitting them together up at the lake.”

“That should be nice for them. To get away, I mean.”

“Maybe not so much,” Chris said darkly. “Bruce is thinking seriously about breaking up with him.”

“No way! Why would he want to do that?”

“Because he loves the guy so much. Charles lives under a microscope, bro. And now some fancy law firm is trying to contact Bruce about a quote-unquote bequest. He’s been ducking them. He thinks it means someone’s found out about them. Bruce doesn’t know who. Or how. But he’s truly terrified.”

I let this slide on by. That’s another thing my dad taught me: Never show too much interest in what you’re interested in. “How did the two of them meet? The Beefer’s never been real clear about that.”

“There aren’t a lot of ballers on campus. Hell, Bruce probably could have made the team if he’d wanted to. It’s not like Charles’s teammates are lottery picks. Just good suburban high school players like Bruce was. But Bruce gave it up cold turkey when he came here. His thinking was that if he didn’t have the skills to play at some basketball factory, then it was time to move on. A bit extreme if you ask me, but Bruce is all about moral absolutes.” Chris paused to wave hi to a pair of girls walking by. “The game’s still in his blood though. He shoots hoops to unwind. Charles spotted him draining jumpers by himself in the gym one night. The two of them got into it one-on-one. For real, to hear Bruce tell it. Charles putting his shoulder into him. Bruce giving it to him right back. By the time it was over they both had bloody noses. And Charles was asking him to be his sparring partner.”

“His what?”

“Bruce is burly. Hard to budge inside of the paint.”

“I know this.”

“Well, there’s an acute shortage of practice players on the team who have the heft, and the nerve, to shove Charles around. He was looking to toughen himself up. The guy’s incredibly dedicated. Bruce agreed to help and they started playing one-on-one regularly. Then going out for beers together. And then it turned into something more.”

“Where do they usually?…”

“At his mom’s place in the projects. Velma’s totally cool with it. She accepts Charles for who he is. And she likes Bruce a lot. The neighborhood guys think Bruce is one of his teammates and let him be. Charles is a deity there. It doesn’t occur to
anyone
that he might be gay. He’s just so perfect.”

“Being gay doesn’t mean you’re
im
perfect.”

“Sorry, that didn’t come out right. I just meant he’s this all-American hero, you know?”

“And all-American heroes aren’t queer—as far as we know.” I dabbed at my mouth with a paper napkin. “You said some law firm is putting the screws to the Beefer?”

“Trying to. He thinks someone wants him to stay far away from Charles.”

“Like who?”

“My best guess? Our very own Canterbury College.”

I shook my head at him. “Don’t follow you.”

“They took a huge financial hit when the stock market tanked. The endowment fund is still down something like 40 percent. Alumni contributions are way off, too. There was a story about it in our online newspaper just last week. The school’s had to scale back course offerings, lay off non-tenured faculty, defer scheduled building maintenance. Tough times, okay? And then along comes Charles in Charge. As much as the board of trustees sneers at athletics here at hallowed Canterbury, they’re making a fucking fortune off of the guy. Before he arrived we played our home games at Stuyvesant Field House, which seats maybe two thousand and was never even half full. Thanks to Charles we’re now filling Madison Square Garden
and
a lot of our games are televised. If you make it into the Final Four you’re talking
millions
in TV revenue. Face it, bro, Canterbury needs Charles. And they intend to milk him for all he’s worth until the day he graduates. A gay sex scandal? Really not part of their plan.”

“So you think this law firm’s fronting for the board of trustees?”

Chris nodded. “Something like that.”

His theory rang truer to me than Sara’s did. A distinguished college like Canterbury was exactly the sort of twenty-four-carat client that Bates, Winslow and Seymour was accustomed to dealing with.

Chris glanced at his watch. “I have to run to class, but I can’t throw Sara’s favorite cousin out in the snow. If you want to crash in the suite tonight you’re more than welcome.”

“That’s incredibly nice of you, Chris, but I think I’ll catch a train out to Willoughby. Stay with my aunt and uncle for a few days.”

He eyed me curiously. “You get along with them?”

“Well enough. Why are you asking?”

“Because Bruce can’t stand his parents. Especially his father. We’re talking extreme loathing here. He once told me that his single greatest ambition in life is to grow up to be someone who his father thoroughly disapproves of.”

“That sounds fairly damning.”

Chris let out a laugh. “You think?”

*   *   *

“YOUR NEW GIRLFRIEND STOPPED BY,”
Rita informed me dryly as I came in the office door.

“New girlfriend?” I frowned at her. “What new girlfriend?”

At the sound of our voices, Mom popped out of her office, her eyes twinkling at me.

“She left you
those,
” Rita explained, nodding toward my desk.

Waiting there for me on a paper plate were two slightly squished chocolate cupcakes. On one of them
Call
was scrawled in white icing. On the other
Me
.

Mom and Rita both gazed at me expectantly, anxious for the lowdown.

“That must have been Sonya. Did she say her name was Sonya?”

“I believe she did say her name was Sonya,” Mom confirmed.

“You see, Abby? I told you he met someone. He has that special glow. Look at him—he’s glowing right now.”

“I can see it, Rita. Our little boy’s all grown up.”

“Would you two kindly give it up? I barely even met the girl.”

“And yet,” Mom said, “she’s bringing you cupcakes that she made with her own little hands. Who is this Sonya?”

“The daughter of Al Posner’s nephew.”

Mom shuddered. “I can’t stand that man. He’s a total lech. Plus he smells just like—”

“Pickled herring, I know. Look, she stopped by B’Nai Jacob this morning with a coffee cake for the gang. We chatted for exactly one minute. She’s a kindergarten teacher. She and her kids were making cupcakes today.”

“Hence the cupcakes,” Rita said.

“You don’t generally see such a rack on a kindergarten teacher,” Mom said.

Rita nodded in agreement. “Not unless you’re watching online porn. She must have had a boob job. Those girls of hers are
torpedoes
.”

“Maybe she just had chicken filets stuffed inside of her bra,” Mom said.

“No way,” Rita argued. “I could clearly make out her nipples.”

“They’re doing wonderfully inventive things with filets now.”

“It so happens that Sonya’s tits are real,” I interjected.

Mom blinked at me. “And just exactly how do you know that?”

“She told me so.”

“She told him so, Rita.” Mom was vastly amused. “And, God knows, a young lady would never lie about such a thing to a young man who she’s just met at temple.”

“Sonya also asked me to give you a message.…” Rita squinted down at her notepad. “She wanted to make sure you hadn’t ‘washed your hand.’ Exactly where
was
your hand?”

“Sonya wrote her phone numbers on it. She wants me to call her.”

“Hence the subtle message on the cupcakes,” Rita said. “Are you planning to?”

“I really don’t know.” Although I’d definitely transferred her numbers from my paw to my smartphone and laptop. “What did you think of her?”

“Pushy and nosy,” Rita sniffed. “A regular little ferret, showing up here at your workplace asking a million questions about you. And what is up with that voice?”