Innuendo (35 page)

He hung up, dropping the receiver into the base, then puffed up his cheeks and exhaled all at once. A half-second later he turned to Todd, flashing that grin that could light up a city.

“My life is so fucking complicated I can't believe it.” As he placed the phone to a side table, he said, “I can't use a cordless phone or even a cellular, at least not for anything serious. I've had people try to listen into my conversations. I mean, they did it to Prince Charles, listened while he supposedly told Camille what's-her-face that he wanted to come back as a Tampax for her use.”

“Doesn't sound very appealing to me.”

“Straight people—what can I say?” Shaking his head and laughing, Chase pushed himself to his feet. “Hey, where are my manners? Let me take your coat.”

Like his wife's, Tim Chase's good looks were by no means forced or contrived, but rather natural, even casual, in an all-American, boyish kind of way. He too wore jeans that were somehow perfectly worn and that fit him like a leather glove. Again, tonight he sported no shoes, only white socks. And a simple shirt, off-white with a light plaid pattern of black threads. His hair was rich and brown and glossy and perfectly cut. And that smile, that unbelievable smile that seemed so genuine, that seemed to say he was glad Todd was here. Could it be true?

As Todd started to lift off his coat, a shot of pain zipped through him, and he flinched and grimaced. He closed his eyes for a moment, realized that he shouldn't have come.

“Hey, are you alright?” asked Chase, coming over.

“Well… it's been kind of a long day.”

Chase's smile vanished and a look of concern washed over him. He reached for Todd's coat, then peered at the side of Todd's head.

“Man, what did you do, fall off a horse?”

“Something like that, anyway.”

“You got a pretty good bruise going on up there.” Not hesitating, Chase reached up, gingerly touching Todd's head.

As Chase's fingertips skimmed across his skin, Todd grabbed him by the wrist, and said, “Ouch.”

“Sorry. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so, but maybe I shouldn't have come. Maybe I… I…”

“What the hell happened?”

Todd wondered if he should get into it, but found himself saying, “I've been covering this murder story, the one about the gay kid who was murdered.”

His face went blank. “Yeah?”

“Well, I got a call from that kid's father, and—”

“You're kidding?”

“No, and he asked me to meet him and… and we kind of got into a scuffle.”

“Jesus, you should have called the police.”

“I tried. His line was busy.”

Tim looked at Todd with a grin. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Helping Todd off with his coat, he said, “Let me guess, you didn't win.”

“That obvious?”

“Yep. Now, come on, follow me. I know just what will make you feel better.”

Without hesitation Chase wrapped his fingers around Todd's wrist and led him toward a dry bar on the side of the room. As they walked Todd looked down, saw that the cuff of Tim's shirt was rolled back a couple of times, exposing a meaty forearm covered with a fine grove of dark hair. In his gut Todd felt something smolder and spark.

The bar was a gilded wooden chest with a green marble top, and on it sat a silver ice bucket cradling a bottle of white wine. Next to that was a plate of artfully arranged food.

“Do you like shellfish?” asked Chase.

“You're belying your Midwestern roots—I've never heard that question anywhere but here.”

“Right, this is the land of the tuna fish casserole.”

“Up here we don't use such fancy words—we call it a hot dish.”

“Ah, Minnesota—call it like it is.” Chase laughed. “God, I get so sick of the bullshit in California. This place may be a little naive—”

“The land of the bland, you mean.”

“Maybe, but at the same time it's pretty straightforward. I miss that. I'm so sick of people sucking up to me. I'm so sick of people pretending to be my friends. It's just so fake, so unreal, that sometimes, well, I forget who I am.”

Todd couldn't resist. “So who are you?”

Looking straight at him, Chase said, “What an odd sense I get from you.”

“Don't forget, I'm a reporter, and reporters always have ulterior motives.”

“Ah, yes. A good point. So, let me remind you, all of this is still off the record. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” replied Todd, knowing that unless he wanted to be shown to the door he had no choice.

“So what we have here is a plate of mussels, first grilled outside, then doused with garlic butter and chopped tomatoes.” Tim picked up the plate in one hand, two wineglasses in the other. “Now, grab that bucket of wine and follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To ease your wounds.”

They made a small train, the two of them, Todd following Tim Chase out of the extravagant living room and then down the enormous entry hall toward the back of the house. Todd presumed they were going to a back porch of some sort, yet Todd couldn't help but be suspect.

He asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Being nice to me.”

“Because I like you.”

No, Todd wasn't going to take this, being baited, and he said, “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that you're sincere and honest. It means that you don't say pate or terrine or flan or even casserole. You say hot dish. And it means that this wonderful kingdom of fame and fortune in which I live is nothing more than a gilded prison.”

“What are you implying, that you're lonely?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I am. I'm lonely for intelligent company instead of an army of bimbo wannabes.” Throwing a curve, Chase added, “And I want to hang out with a gay man.”

“Are you taunting me?”

Glancing over his shoulder with a smirk, he said, “No, I'm playing a gay man from the Midwest and I need to do some homework.”

“Oh, so I'm still research?”

“As I am to you.”

“Touch?.”

At the rear of the hall they headed not out the rear door, not up the curving staircase to the right, but down the stairs to the left, which descended in a wide curve. Carrying the frosted wine in the silver bucket, Todd silently followed after the leading man, taking the low, even steps around and down to the basement. Reaching for a brass plate mounted on a wall of mahogany paneling, Tim hit a bank of light switches, the old-fashioned push-button kind, which he poked one after another. Brass sconces came to life, lighting up a room that was filled with the latest gym equipment, from stair machines to racks of free weights. Todd looked around until he saw a wall of French doors and beyond them a swimming pool, the one he'd heard about. Yes, not only did it obviously exist, it was beautiful. And it was no concrete tub, not by any means. Tim led the way over, pulled open two of the glass doors, and exposed a robber baron's swimming pool, none too large, but completely lined with small pearly-white tiles, from the bottom of the pool, up and around the deck, up the walls, and across the ceiling. Four large brass fixtures mounted on the walls lit the chamber.

“Amazing,” said Todd.

“Isn't it great? It was built when the house was—1901—but this,” said Chase, leaning around to a panel and flicking more switches, “was added a few years ago.”

In an instant he brought to life the bubbling power of a hot tub, which sat off the far end of the pool and in front of four French doors that led outside.

“Come on. It'll make you feel great.”

Todd glanced over at the swirling mass of water, not sure that any of this was really happening. Biting his trepidation and holding his tongue, he continued after Chase, who made his way along the narrow tile deck. When he reached the far end of the pool, Chase put the plate down on a small metal table, then grabbed a couple of mussels and sucked them down. He groaned with pleasure, put down the wineglasses, then turned and took the wine from Todd.

Pouring them each a glass, he handed one to Todd, then held his up. “Cheers, man.”

“To your health.”

Taking a sip, Todd eyed Tim Chase as he took a long, luxuriant drink. Then Todd watched as the other started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Don't just stand there,” said Chase, pulling his shirt out of his pants. “Come on.”

“We're really doing this?”

“Of course.”

“But I don't have a suit.”

Chase looked at Todd as if he were crazy. “Well, neither do I.” He stopped still, snapped his fingers, and said, “Which reminds me.”

Moving quickly, Chase went to the four French doors that looked outside and shut the miniblinds that covered them.

“You never know,” said Chase. “The yard falls away in the rear of the house and these windows look out over a patio and the backyard. And you never know when some photographer is going to be lurking out there. The last thing I want is my naked ass all over the Internet.”

“It's kind of like you're being spied on all the time, isn't it?”

“That's the story of my life.”

As Todd watched, the star continued to strip, unbuttoning his shirt, then unzipping his jeans. So? So Todd started to disrobe too. He put down his glass of wine, pulled out his shirttails, and thought how no one was going to believe this. No one. A little smirk crossed his mouth. He was getting naked in that tub of boiling water with Tim Chase? Good fucking grief.

Feeling like a naughty schoolboy, Todd stole a glance out of the corner of his eye, and saw an incredible body, the best that Hollywood could buy. Surely sculpted by a personal trainer, Tim Chase's body was as muscular as it was lean, with every muscle on his arms defined and bulging, a beefy and taut smooth chest, and a six-pack of muscles on his abdomen. More than a box-office body, it was a muscle queen's, and Todd, who was in no shabby shape, paled in comparison.

“The truth of it,” said Chase as he peeled away his faded jeans, “is that it's like being in Russia or China or North Korea, with everyone spying on my every move, wanting to report this or that.”

Todd reached for the top button of his pants, then started to unzip. “It sounds awful.”

“You know what—it is.”

Chase was naked in a second, and Todd tried not to stare. Nevertheless, his eyes went right to the target, and he saw a bush of brown pubic hair surrounding what appeared to be not a box-office, larger-than-life organ, but a mere normal-sized penis. Right, thought Todd. He's just a guy. Yet Todd couldn't help watching as the clothes-less Chase placed the plate of mussels by the whirlpool, grabbed his glass of wine, then slowly descended into the hot water.

Todd dropped his pants and underwear, sucked in his waist, then naked, casually took his glass of wine. As he approached the mass of bubbling water he realized Tim wasn't even looking at him. No, he was sitting deep in the water with his head leaned back against the edge and his eyes closed. So either Todd did nothing to elicit his fantasies, he was playing it very, very cool, or…or Tim Chase was in fact straight.

Either way, Todd instinctively understood he was about to find out.

After he paid for
his beer at Jam's, Rawlins returned to his car, climbed in, and wondered what in the hell he should do next. He jabbed his car key into the ignition and was about to fire up the engine, but then instead pulled his phone from the pocket of his jacket. Yet again he tried Todd's cell phone and yet again he tried the condo, failing to get an answer at either number. Rawlins then called his voice mail down at CID, finding to his surprise that Todd had in fact called. Pressing the small phone to his ear, Rawlins listened both carefully and nervously

“Hey, Rawlins, it's me, Todd. I'm okay… I think. It's a long story—I'll tell you later—but obviously we have a lot of things to talk about. Listen, I've got to meet someone in a few minutes. I'll call you back later.”

More than stunned, Rawlins played the message a second and a third time. What the hell was going on? Unsure, Rawlins flicked off the phone, dropped the slim plastic device onto his lap, then just sat there in the parking lot, as angry as he was fearful that one of the greatest things in his life had already started to unravel. Where the hell was Todd? What was he doing? And what did any of this mean?

His phone began to chirp, which shocked Rawlins out of any kind of funk that he'd been about to tumble into. Praying that it was Todd, he snatched up the receiver.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, it's me, Foster.”

“Oh, right, hi.”

“Did your guy show yet? Is he with you?”

“What? Ah, no.” Grabbing and tugging at his hair with his right hand, Rawlins glanced around the parking lot. “The whole deal kind of fell apart. I'll tell you about it later.”

“Well, then, let's do it.”

“Do what?”

“Let's do like we talked about. Let's see what we can learn about Victor Michael Radzinsky.”

Right, thought Rawlins, now recalling. That was their plan, to go right up to that place. That was what they had discussed. Just a few questions, that was all, namely what connection did Radzinsky have to that house and where was he the night Andrew Lyman was murdered?