Innuendo (22 page)

“Love you too,” replied the boy.

“Gwen, this is Todd Mills. Todd, this is my wife, Gwen Owens. She came out for a while so I wouldn't get lonely—and to keep me out of trouble.”

“And this,” said Gwen, gesturing to the attractive young woman, “is the lovely Maggie, my—”

Tim cut in, saying, “Todd's a reporter for a local TV station.”

“Oh, is that right?” she said with a broad smile and without missing a beat. “Well, as I was saying, this is Maggie, our lovely nanny.”

Todd said, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” replied Maggie, grinning from where she sat.

Our lovely nanny? Had something just happened here? A warning telegraphed?

“Come on, pumpkin,” beckoned Gwen, walking over and lifting her young son from Tim's arms. “Time to hit the hay.” She leaned forward and pecked Tim on the cheek. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Ditto,” he said, returning the kiss.

“Nice to meet you, Todd.” With a wink, she added, “Now, don't keep him up too late. He's got to be on the set at six tomorrow morning. And God knows it's hard for anyone, male or female, to look beautiful at that hour.”

With her son in her arms, Gwen headed toward the back of the kitchen and presumably another staircase. Just as Gwen passed Maggie, her young son began twisting and squirming.

“I want my other mommy too!”

“Oh, don't worry, she's coming,” assured Gwen.

Todd stood perfectly still, sucking it all in, trying to comprehend what was really going on in this household. He glanced at Gwen, who didn't seem the least bit fazed by the child's words, and then Todd watched as Maggie hopped off the counter and followed after them. When he looked over at Tim, however, he saw the other man looking straight at him.

“Kids,” said Chase. “Maggie's been with us since the day he was born. She travels everywhere with us too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and she's been a real lifesaver.”

So Maggie probably was like a second mom to the boy. Or was she really? Could little Jack have two mommies? After all, children were not only remarkably perceptive, they were also naturally honest, brutally so.

Tim said, “What do you want, white or red?”

“Red if you've got it.”

“By the case.” Chase reached into a cabinet and pulled out two large wineglasses. “Actually, I'll open a bottle of Jack's wine.”

“Your son has his own label?”

“No. Jack as in Jack Nicholson. We named our boy after him— he's his godfather too. And Jack Nicholson has a vineyard he thinks is the greatest on earth, which isn't surprising since he thinks he's the greatest piece of shit on earth. And maybe he is. Anyway, he sends us a couple of cases of his wine every year for Christmas, and it's actually pretty good.”

“Oh.”

Like what was Todd supposed to say, how was he supposed to keep up with that kind of casual talk? Tell him that two years ago he got a Butterball turkey from the station manager?

Todd watched his every move, judged his every word, from the way he pulled a bottle from the cabinet and opened it with ease, to the toast he made to their good health. It was weird, there was no doubt about it. It was as if he'd walked through a door and was having a totally normal conversation with Michael Jackson and that he found him just a regular old guy. But that's in fact how Tim Chase appeared. Normal. It was that sense of ease that so many journalists had written about, that nice guy quality that sort of couldn't help but come through the dazzling smile. Or was that all a facade? This guy was an actor. He was a professional at creating illusion. And that was what acting was all about, the craft and art of making people believe that what they were seeing was the absolute truth.

“Come on, let's go shoot some pool,” said Chase, touching Todd on the elbow. “Say, I bet you're wondering why we selected you of all the local journalists for a possible interview”

“Well, that thought had crossed my mind.”

“I'll be perfectly frank, it's because you're gay.”

Standing in the back
hall, his muscular body pressed against a line of coats hanging from hooks, the bald man listened to their conversation. No, thought Vic, he didn't like this, not one bit. Gwen wasn't too bad, but Tim always said too much. Always. Which made Vic's own job that much more difficult.

Now that Gwen and Maggie and the boy had gone the other way down the hall and up the back staircase, he could move closer. He had, from years of Tai Chi, fine control of every muscle, and he silently inched around some boots, past an umbrella, around a nylon parka, and right up to the edge of the kitchen door. No, he thought, there was no way they knew he was back here. No way at all.

He heard the pop of a wine bottle, the clinking of glasses. And he heard Tim turning on the charm, per usual. A real master at that, no doubt about it. But it made Vic nervous as hell. He didn't think there was any way this Todd Mills could know anything. Maybe he suspected, perhaps he just wondered. But this wasn't good, not by any means, having someone from the media lurking here inside the house.

Listening to every word of their chatter, he then discerned them heading off to play pool. Well, he thought, there was nothing to do now. Whatever happened was out of his control.

And hoping no damage would be done before he returned with the sushi, he turned down the narrow hall and started for the garage.

Carrying the bottle of
wine as well as his glass, Tim led Todd through the living room and into the billiard room, which was of course a chamber of grand proportions with the same soaring ceiling. Two huge leaded glass windows filled one of the walls, while on the others hung random antelope and deer heads, a six-foot-long rattlesnake skin, and a pair of long-horns, all trophies of when men were men. Squarely planted in the middle, with a brass light fixture hanging low over it, was a Victorian billiard table, a huge thing crafted of carved mahogany. Its surface was covered with a field of rich green felt, and from the six pockets hung woven leather pouches. This was a gentleman's room, a manly man's place to discuss money and hunting and port. And tonight, the mysteries of sexuality.

Todd sipped his wine as he leaned against the edge of the billiard table, then couldn't stop himself from saying, “Gee, and here I was hoping your people had contacted me because of my talents and abilities as a journalist, not because of my sexual orientation.”

“Please, don't be offended.”

“For being gay?”

“No,” replied Chase looking at him with an oddly seductive grin, “for my wanting to use you.”

What the hell did he mean by that? It gave Todd a start, not only the way Tim Chase said it, but also the way his eyes kept scanning Todd. Was double entendre the second language of this household?

Determined not to lose his own ground, Todd said, “I'm afraid you're going to have to be a little more specific.”

“What I mean is that I wanted to meet with and talk to a successful gay person from the Midwest. Everybody and their brother at a studio fiddles with a script, but it's me that has his neck on the line. They're a bunch of West Coast people—and granted, a whole lot of them are homosexual—but it's me who's going to have to convince an audience not only that I'm gay, but that I'm from here.”

“Oh, so I'm research.”

“In so many words, sure.”

“But why? You're from the Midwest.” Did he, Todd wondered, dare? “But I can see your concern. After all, there've been all those nasty little rumors, haven't there? I mean, isn't everyone curious if you are in fact gay?”

“Ohhh, aren't you the direct one? And, yes, that's been the sixty-four thousand dollar question: Where does Tim Chase put his cock?” he said with a laugh. “Good God, I'll never live it down, just like Richard Gere will never live down that apocryphal pesky rodent story.”

“Yeah, he probably won't.”

“Do you know why they put Princess Di on the cover of so many issues of
People
magazine? Because those issues always sold millions. And do you know why all the tabloids put Tim Chase and his love life on the cover? Because those issues always sell out. Which leads me to the second reason I wanted to meet with you. For this movie I'd like ultimately to be interviewed by someone who's gay. I want to meet the doubters head on so that they can see there's no conspiracy of silence.”

So how the hell was Todd supposed to understand all this… this babble, this elongated non-answer? In a roundabout way was he saying no, he wasn't gay, or was he just successfully evading the question?

Tim led Todd to a wooden wall rack and they chose their weapons, the finest of long straight cues. At his host's insistence, Todd racked up the balls into a tight triangle, and then broke them, sinking a striped ball. Tim followed, making a difficult shot into a side pocket, then missing a second one. They played on, alternating turns and sipping Jack Nicholson wine.

And it was Todd, who by personality as well as by profession returned to risqu? waters, asking, “So what do you want to know about a gay man in the Midwest?”

Tim completed a shot, sinking a solid in a corner pocket, and replied in a near-businesslike way, “I want to know about your work, how long you've been at the present station and what kind of stories you usually cover. I want to know what it's like being openly gay at work… and how long you've been out. And I want to know if you're out to your parents, and of course all about your love life.”

“Well…”

Todd went through it all, answering each of his questions in detail. He started with his college years, telling Chase all about his dear love and dear friend Janice, who also turned out to be queer. He talked about being in the closet, about marrying Karen, then being terrified that viewers would find out and his career would be flushed down the toilet. And he talked about doing tricks on the side, wherever, however he could get them. And then Michael and Rawlins.

They finished one game, started on another. And refilled their glasses. Tim took it in, every facet of Todd's life.

“You were married?” asked Chase as Todd neared the end.

“Yeah, for a number of years.” He hesitated, then added, “And I've got a kid. A son.”

“No shit. How old?”

“Well… it happened when I was in college, so actually he's in his early twenties now.”

“Wow.”

“Unfortunately I don't know him very well. It's a long story, and something I need to take care of, but…”

No, thought Todd, I'm not going to toss in the fact that my son has a daughter, which obviously means I'm also a grandfather. Instead he went on to tell the story of his coming out, which was when Todd realized he had Tim Chase completely hooked. As Todd told the star how he was outed when Michael was murdered, Tim put down his pool cue, picked up his glass of wine, and stared at Todd, his face etched with sympathy and understanding.

“Oh, my God,” Tim muttered several times throughout the telling. “How horrible. It must have been…”

“Hard, but ultimately good.”

Why was it, Todd wondered, that coming-out stories held such universal appeal to gay men? Was it simply the common experience? The same plunging of the soul for the inner truth, a truth of character that straight people were rarely forced to discover? And why did it seem that Tim Chase was now listening to Todd's story, judging it for how it might reflect on his own life? Was he vicariously understanding what it would be like for him to come out, to put everything he had worked for at risk simply so that he could assert his own identity and inner sense of honesty? Or was he simply a truly kind man?

Tim Chase was already one of the very biggest stars, the kind like Henry Fonda and Cary Grant, a star who was destined to live on as an icon for generations. Todd, in comparison, was a mere speck, if that, yet as he talked Todd couldn't help but feel that they had something in common. No, Todd wasn't particularly intuitive, not by any means, yet he couldn't help but think they were very similar in one regard, that they both held a deep-seated fear of what people thought of them. Without any evidence and despite knowing the man but for a very short while, Todd supposed that Tim Chase had gone into acting not only as a way of escaping himself, but as a way of projecting a larger-than-life image of the person he longed to be: a true hero, a true heterosexual hero. Maybe he was straight, maybe he wasn't, Todd had no answer to that simple question, but he did know that Hollywood was a citadel of homophobia, a place where people feared one thing almost above all others: that a particular truth would kill their careers.

The sushi arrived. Vic, the bodyguard, didn't make much of a waiter, but he brought in two Styrofoam containers and then silently disappeared. Todd and Tim started in on the food, and then Tim dashed off for another bottle of Nicholson's best. As Tim poured Todd his third and soon fourth glass of wine, Todd wondered if Chase felt it too, this sense that the two of them could be genuine friends. Or did Chase just naturally exude that aura, was that part of his star charm, the ability to make everyone feel comfortable around him? Was the magic of his appeal simply based on his ability to make everyone like him?

“So what about your love life?” asked Tim, stuffing a tuna roll into his mouth. “You mentioned this guy, this cop. Is he your Mr. Wonderful?”