High Country- Pigeon 12 (34 page)

Wither resumed his seat. Uninvited, Anna sat in the other chair. A coal-black cat, fat from four-star leftovers, laboriously leaped into Wither's lap. "Stinker," he said by the way of introduction.

Before she could actually begin to like the man, Anna launched into the reason for her late-night visit.

"You're gay," she said without preamble.

"Yes," he said, and: "You're a prying female."

"Yes. Did Scott tell you about the syringe of blood taped in my jacket?"

Wither said nothing. He stroked Stinker. Anna could hear the cat's rumbling purr from where she sat and wished he'd come to her lap instead of Jim's.

"The blood tested positive for AIDS," she said.

Still Jim said nothing. The skin of his face, already drawn tight across the bones, twitched, a spasm around the mouth.

"What do you know about the needle?"

"I didn't put it in your coat."

"But you know who did."

Wither was not indifferent to Anna's words. Though silent, his attention apparently on the cat filling his bony lap, there was nothing relaxed or insolent about him. He almost seemed to be collapsing in on himself, the thick red robe swallowing his gaunt frame.

"I'll tell you what I think," Anna said when it was clear he wasn't going to chime in anytime soon. "I think you had a lover who was arrested for some reason and sent to Soledad. You finagled your way into the prison system as a teacher of the culinary arts because you wanted to be with him during the last months of his life. He had the AIDS virus and eventually succumbed to pneumonia."

Anna was alarmed to see a fat tear leak from the corner of his eye to begin a perilous journey down the cliffs and planes of his face. "He was twenty-seven when he died."

The tears irritated Anna. She'd come prepared for raging, verbal abuse, even self-pity. Wither's obvious grief was unnerving. To counteract these unsettling feelings of compassion, she was unnecessarily harsh. "So the guy kicks the bucket and you take up with Scott Wooldrich and stay on at Soledad."

"You're a stupid bitch," Wither said with a hint of his customary fierceness. "Scott's not gay. Gay men, believe it or not, are capable of having friends they don't fuck."

That was better. Anna felt less sorry for him.

"The night the needle was put in the sleeve of my jacket you were mad at me. Why?"

The fierceness left him as quickly as it had manifest. Without it he looked even smaller, frailer than before. Seeing this crumpled, ailing man, his cat in his lap, his fluffy bathrobe dwarfing him, cowering under her tongue-lashing sickened Anna. She didn't like who she was or what she was doing. The greater good of truth and law seemed far away, irrelevant in the face of breaking a human spirit even further.

Jim kindly rallied and attacked, relieving her of some of her guilt.

"How dare you come flouncing in here and grill me? You're nothing but a damn waitress."

Anna was offended. She never flounced. Still, she was glad to see his customary arrogance. After she had tiptoed around in fear of his wrath for two weeks, it had been disconcerting to see him shrunken, old and pathetic.

"You come in at the top of the food chain even though you're a lousy waitress and start poking around in things that are none of your business. You'll get a thick finger stirring in this pot, I can tell you that."

Anna was stung. "I'm not a lousy waitress," she said before she could remind herself not to engage in peripheral matters.

Jim sniffed. "If the pasta primavera isn't served hot you might as well leave it out for the coyotes."

One little visitor complaint and a girl's reputation was ruined. Anna took a moment to mourn the tarnishing of her new career, then began again.

"There's more going on at the Ahwahnee than food," she said in exasperation. "Talk to me. You're making me crazy here. There are four dead kids and one-maybe two-dead thugs on the mountain. Something is going on in this valley. I think you know about it."

The blast of words scorched over and around him. Anna watched decisions made and unmade and made again on his face. For a moment she believed he would tell her what he knew, then that he would say nothing. Then:

"I was mad because I thought you knew I was sick and were going to noise it about. Cooking is what I do."

"Why did you think I'd do that?"

Silence.

"Somebody told you, didn't they?"

Silence.

"They were setting you up, so when the syringe was found you'd be the number-one fall guy."

Nothing.

"Don't you care, for Chrissake?"

Nothing.

"Who told you I was trying to get you fired?"

Exasperated, Anna decided to try another tack. "Tiny got you the job in the prison. Tell me about that."

For a moment she didn't think he was going to respond to this either, but he pulled himself up from the depths of his bathrobe and began.

"Tiny's brother has some pull in the criminal justice system. Tiny and I had been friends for a long time. She knew about Lonnie. When I started researching ways I might be with him, she got her brother to call in some favors. At least that's what she said. Maybe my proposal would have been accepted anyway. I don't know. At the time I thought she was helping me and I was . . . grateful."

"Tiny knows you have AIDS?"

"She knows."

"Are you afraid she'll tell?"

"It doesn't matter now. I told the general manager-Dane Trapper-tonight."

"Why now?" Anna asked.

In lieu of answering he pulled back the lank dark hair that fell forward over his face. On his temple near the hair line two lesions marred the skin. In the gentle firelight they appeared black and deadly, the harbingers of death.

"Ah," was all she could think to say.

The sound of the front door opening caught their attention. "Hey Jim, you still up?" Scott's voice.

"In here," Jim replied like a drowning man calling for help.

Scott came in, dwarfing the small room. With him came the smell of cold, of pine, cologne and the faint odor of food. When he saw Anna he stopped and the smile of greeting left his face. No other expression replaced it. He looked at her with a countenance so carefully blank she couldn't but wonder what he was hiding.

"A little late for social calls, don't you think?" he said neutrally. Without taking his eyes off of her, he let his jacket slide to the floor and sat on the low hearth, his knees up around his broad shoulders. "To what do we owe this honor?" The boyish smile was back but Anna didn't trust it. She was distracted by the biceps pushing out of the thin sleeves of his black T-shirt, of the broad blunt hands that could snap a small woman's neck in a heartbeat.

"I had some things I wanted to ask Jim about," she said.

"She figured out I've got AIDS," Jim said. "She came to see if I'd put my poisoned blood into a needle to infect her." The way he said "poisoned" carried such a world of hurt and bitterness it made Anna ashamed to have come quizzing him. To dispel it she said:

"Do you know anything about that, Scott?"

Before answering he looked at his roommate. Jim looked back. It was as if each challenged rather than accused the other. "I was there when you found it," Scott said noncommittally.

"You recognized the syringe."

"All of them look alike."

"The blood."

"It crossed my mind it could've been Jim's, but he's got no reason to want to hurt you," Scott said.

"Except you're a lousy waitress," the chef put in.

"I am not," Anna snapped before she thought. Jim smiled. A point for him.

"I know Jim," Scott said. "He would never give anyone the virus knowingly. He's phobic about it. Won't let me use the same coffeepot as him. I'm surprised he lets me keep my tuna cans next to his in the cupboard."

"Screw you," Jim said.

"Don't you wish you could."

"Everybody else has."

"Don't believe everything you read in the papers," Scott finished and smiled.

There was no rancor between the men and Anna got the idea it was a private joke, that the lines had been said many times. Lines: it was from a play. "Love Letters," Anna said.

"A lover of theater," Jim mocked her. "I knew you couldn't be a real waitress, too many complaints."

This time Anna did not rise to the bait. Needing to regain control, she changed the subject. "He was telling me about Lonnie, the guy in Soledad prison who gave him AIDS."

Jim suddenly took fire. Rising out of his chair he pointed a bony finger at Anna. "Lonnie did not give me AIDS. Goddamn you. Damn you. Get out," he yelled. "Get out of here before I . . . Get her out of here, Scott." He was shaking so bad he fell back, remaining standing only because he supported himself on the back of the chair. Spittle flecked his lips and his eyes had gone wild.

Anna stood and gathered her coat from where she'd dropped it beside the chair. "Sorry." She'd hit a nerve squarely and hard. Now was the time to press the issue. Wishing she knew what the issue was, which nerve she'd triggered, she watched Jim. He was as a flame around a dying wick, all shimmer and heat, no substance.

"Jim," she said. "If-"

"I'll walk you out." Scott took her arm in a firm grip.

"I can find my own way," she said, but didn't try and pull away.

Ignoring the rebuff, Scott went with her to the door, catching up his own coat as he did.

"Want me to walk you back?" he asked as Anna stepped onto the little porch.

"No thanks." Scott lived with Jim. He knew the man had AIDS. Very possibly he helped his old friend and mentor with medications. Scott would have been in a prime position to withdraw blood after giving a shot and keep the syringe for later use. For the first time since she'd met the man, Anna had no desire to be alone with him in the dark.

"Let me walk you. It's late," he insisted.

"No," Anna said, too tired to bother with amenities or kind excuses.

"Be careful."

She left not knowing whether Scott's parting words were a warning, a banality or good wishes.

CHAPTER 19

Again Anna eschewed the darkness of the forest path and walked the less prosaic road edging the meadow. Late on a winter night so close to Christmas the park was stunningly quiet. The stillness was so deep Anna sank into it, sank into herself. Blind with a thousand thoughts, she walked, head down, trusting her feet to find their own way.

Jim's fury at the suggestion Lonnie had given him the virus, Scott's insistence that the chef was careful-overcareful, to the point of obsession-not to spread his disease had rung true. Jim had not been the one to booby-trap her coat sleeve, but there was little doubt that his blood had been used. Both he and Scott had seemed to accept that. That left only Scott, the man who lived with him, helped him with his medications, gave him shots.

Anna took her time with that thought, making sure she wasn't fooling herself because she was attracted to him. Crushes, lust, pheromones-whatever the mechanics that kicked in to insure the continuation of the species-clouded judgment. Since she had known Scott, she had spent too much time with him in her mind. It was hard to know how many gray cells had been rearranged.