Missing (19 page)

It had been my plan to stop at Rue de la Paix on my
way to town and talk to Paul Grandin, Jr.’s, mother. But after the
fiasco in Indian Hill, I decided that there had to be a better way to
find the boy than through his family. In spite of all the things I’d
heard to the contrary, it appeared to me that the Grandins—or at
least the father and daughter—honestly believed that Mason
Greenleaf had corrupted Paul. The kind of hatred I’d seen in
Grandin Senior’s face, the bitterness in his daughter’s voice
weren’t equivocal testimony.

Of course the daughter had been a child when the
episode with Mason occurred, and her memories of it had undoubtedly
been shaped by her father’s prejudices. Still, the depth of their
anger was impressive—and unsettling.

I stopped at the CPD building on my way to the office
to pick up the coroner’s report from Ron Sabato. Sabato wasn’t
in. Another cop named Atkins found what I wanted in a file on Ron’s
desk. Since I was in the building, I stopped at Criminalistics and
asked Dick Lock if he’d finished the LEADS search.

"Computer’s been down most of the afternoon,"
he said. "I did the BMV for you before it crashed."

He handed me a printout on Paul Grandin, Jr.
According to his license application, the boy lived on Klotter Street
in Over-the-Rhine. It was a far cry from Indian Hill, so far that it
made me wonder if Dick had the right guy. But his age matched up
correctly.

So did color of hair.

"This is current?" I asked.

"Fairly. Renewed two and a half years ago.
What’s the problem?"

"The kid comes from money, is all."

"Well, it’s hard times now, Harry," Lock
said.
 

20

LOWER Klotter Street runs west off Ravine, on the
northern Ledge of Over-the-Rhine. At one time it, too, had been a
slum of crumbling brownstones like most of the north side, but
throughout the eighties urban developers had moved in and begun to
gentrify the uphill side of the street, the side with the city views.
The downhill side, overlooking the burnt-out shell of McMicken, was
still mostly Appalachian poor. It made for an odd mix, reflected in
the parked cars on the street—half Mazdas and half junkers—and in
the pedestrian traffic. As I drove up the block looking for Grandin’s
address, I saw a middle-class woman in a business suit unlocking a
stout iron gate that barred the door to her condo. Across the block a
ten-year-old kid with a cigarette drooping from his pale, old man’s
face led a muzzled German shepherd around by a rope.

Grandin’s house turned out to be on the renovated
half of the block, a red brick three-story townhouse with freshly
painted white trim, sitting on the upslope side of Ravine. A steep
stone staircase led to it, through an iron gate that someone had left
unlocked. I parked beneath the house in the sawtoothed shadows of the
tenements and picked my way up the stairs to a concrete landing.
Another staircase, freshly constructed out of treated lumber, led up
to a second-story front door. I climbed the second set of stairs and
knocked.

A moment passed, and a man who was not Paul Grandin
answered. He had a tough, handsome, blue-eyed face and long blond
hair that he wore combed back from a widow’s peak and tied in a
ponytail that ran halfway down his back. There was a gold earring in
his right ear, a Semper Fi tattoo with globe and anchor on his right
bicep. Behind him, from inside the house, I could hear a stereo
playing a recording of blues guitar.

Scowling as he opened the door, the man craned his
neck around the side of the building and looked down the stairs
toward the street. "How’d you get through the gate?"

"It wasn’t locked," I told him.

The guy grabbed his head, then his hips—as if he
didn’t know where it hurt worse. "How many times do you have
to tell the electricians to lock the goddamn door?"

He blew some steam from his mouth, then crossed his
arms at his chest and stared at me like what was done was done. Like
I was done.

"So what is it?" he said, leaning arms
crossed against the jamb. "You selling something? Insurance?
Magazines?"

"I’m looking for Paul Grandin."

"Paul doesn’t live here anymore."

"Do you know where I could find him?"

"Mister, I don’t even know who the hell you
are."

I dug through my wallet for a card and handed it to
him. He stared at it curiously. "You’re Stoner?"

"Yeah."

"Tim Bristol," he said, nodding hello. "I
don’t think I’ve ever met a detective before. A few cops, but
never a detective." He tucked the card in his shirt pocket. "So
what is it, Paul’s in trouble again?"

Like Paul Grandin’s father, trouble had been Tim
Bristol’s first thought.

"He’s in no trouble. He may have some
information that relates to a case I’m working on."

"What case would that be?"

Since I needed his help to find Grandin, I went ahead
and told him about Greenleaf’s unexplained suicide. "Paul may
have been one of the last people Greenleaf talked to."

Tim Bristol chewed this over for a moment. "It’s
possible, I guess. The guy always liked Paul, for all the good it did
him."

The man’s bitterness was undisguised and
unmistakable. "I thought you and Paul were friends?"

"Friends‘?" He shook his head. "Uh-unh."

"Didn’t you say he used to live here?"

"He did. Last summer he conned me into rehabbing
the house. 'Long about September, he got tired of doing the work,
fished around for a better offer, and moved out." The guy
laughed like the joke was on him. "How’s that for friends?"

"Do you know where he went after he left?"

"I know where he wanted to go. Back home to live
off his old man’s money. Get his sister and his mom to wait on him
hand and foot. But of course that ain’t going to happen. Not in
this life." He stared at me curiously. "Have you talked to
his old man?"

"Briefly."

"Well, don’t, for chrissake, mention my name
to him. He hates my guts. Thinks I corrupted his fucked-up little
boy—me and that poor son of a bitch who killed himself. Paul never
got around to telling him about the fifty others that came after us.
And during. The little whore always goes with whoever can give him
the sweetest ride and the least amount of trouble. He’s a taker,
you know?"

Unfolding his arms, Bristol extended his hands and
spread his fingers. "Take, take," he said, clawing the air.
"That’s all Paul understands. He had a tough time of it as a
kid, so he figures it’s owed him—whatever he wants, whenever he
wants. If somebody can’t fork over, well then, 'Fuck you, buddy,
it’s time to move on.' "

Tim Bristol glanced through the open door of the
townhouse—at a piece of unpainted drywall forming the side of a
staircase. "I sank every penny I had into this fucking place to
please him. What a dumbass cocksucker, huh?" He turned back to
me and laughed another empty laugh.

Hearing Tim Bristol complain about his lazy,
faithless, manipulative boyfriend, I could see why Grandin Senior
considered his son’s life a ruin. His life sounded like a ruin to
me, too. And if Mason Greenleaf had started him down the road to that
life, I could see where Grandin Senior might easily hold a grudge.
Judging from Bristol’s description, he’d certainly fallen a long
way from the hapless, abused kid that Tom Snodgrass had described and
that Mason  Greenleaf had supposedly taken under his wing—if
Paul Grandin, Jr., had ever been that kid. According to Bristol, he
had been a rotten son of a bitch from the start.

"Did Paul ever talk to you about Mason
Greenleaf?" I asked him.

"Yeah, once in a while," Bristol said. "He
used the old bastard just like he used everyone else. I mean, it was
pathetic. Whenever he didn’t have a bit part at the Playhouse or
couldn’t con a dollar out of one of his other rich johns, Paul
would run over to Mount Adams and play the poor misunderstood kid for
Greenleaf. You know, he’d swear he was going to clean up his act,
quit the whoring around and the partying, and settle down to being an
actor, making career. Greenleaf bought it every fucking time! Five
hundred. A thousand. He once gave him three grand when Paul conned
him into thinking he had a screen test and needed the money for plane
fare and hotel. I don’t know why he kept believing him. I mean,
Paul had proved how insincere he was a thousand times over. I guess
he wanted to think he could make a difference." Bristol slapped
himself lightly on the cheek, as if Paul Grandin was a dream he
couldn’t quite shake. "Look, who’s talking, huh?"

But I was thinking about the little bits of money
that Greenleaf had been feeding his friend. There had been regular
withdrawals from the checking account in the amounts that Bristol
mentioned, even as recently as the last week of Greenleaf’s life.
Which meant he might have been subsidizing the kid for years—out of
guilt or affection or some combination of both.

I studied Tim Bristol for a moment, knowing that what
I wanted to ask him next was a question he might resent. But it had
to be asked. "Was Paul soliciting this money from Greenleaf for
sex?"

"What do I know?" Tim Bristol said,
flushing. "I always got the impression it was more of a
father-son thing. God knows, Paul didn’t have much of a real
father. And God knows if there was something between them, Greenleaf
wasn’t the first. Paul was turning tricks in high school down on
Fourth Street."

It was an ugly picture that he was painting of Paul
Grandin, who appeared to be more of a victimizer than a
victim—perhaps from the start of his relationship with Greenleaf.
It wouldn’t have been the first time that Mason had been
manipulated and taken advantage of by someone he’d loved. At the
same time, I knew that Bristol was a jilted lover who’d lost his
stake in Grandin and the house when Grandin had left him.

Bristol must have heard the vengefulness in his own
voice, because he began to show some remorse. "Look, I’ve
probably gone a little overboard about Paul. Leaving me in the lurch
like he did—well, I’m not feeling real charitable. I honestly
don’t think he means to use people up the way he does. He just
never learned how to care about anyone but himself. You know, with
his mom and sister he could do anything, and they’d just take him
right back, give him a few bucks, a place to crash. And with his old
man, it was like nothing he could do was right. Bouncing around
between them for most of his life, he survived on charm and snake
oil. I don’t think he ever tells the truth, but he’s such an
attractive liar that you end up laughing it off—until somebody gets
hurt."

"Tim, do you have any idea where I can find
Paul?"

Bristol took a deep breath. "Yeah, I know where
he went," he said heavily. "The Playhouse had a new
production starting up last fall. A morality play about AIDS that
toured the city schools this year. Paul got a bit part in it, and one
of the actors, a young guy with a few movie credits, cruised him
during rehearsals. Paul, he just went with it. You know, no more
rehab, chance at the big time, so long, Tim. He claimed it would be
better for his health—he had these allergies to things like sawdust
and nails. It was such horseshit. He just got tired of pulling his
share of the load. The guy’s got a house in Mount Adams on Ida.
Freddy Davis is the fucker’s name. I don’t know the address. I
stopped caring what Paul did the moment he stepped out of this door."

But he certainly didn’t look like he’d stopped
caring. Bristol put a hand over his eyes, although there wasn’t a
drop of sun falling on that shaded porch. "I don’t deserve
this," he said, fighting to control his voice.

There wasn’t a thing I could say that made a
difference. So I said nothing.

I left Tim Bristol standing there with his hand to
his brow and walked down to the sidewalk, shutting the iron gate
behind me, The sun was glaring fiercely on the tarmac, on the windows
of the sandblasted townhouses and crumbling brownstones.

I got in the car, the sweat coming out all over me,
and thought about Paul Grandin, Jr. The play Grandin had been
performing in—the play on AIDS—would explain what he had been
doing at Nine Mile School, when Lee Marks had spotted him talking
with Greenleaf after the performance in the deserted auditorium. What
it didn’t explain was what they’d been talking about—or what
the continuing bond was between the two men. Clearly, in spite of
what Grandin’s sister had said, there was a bond that had continued
after Greenleaf’s arrest and prosecution. Some sense of obligation
or remorse or appetite that had kept Greenleaf feeding the kid money.

If Greenleaf had a
long-standing sexual relationship with Grandin, the fight with the
gray-haired man at Stacie’s bar could have been a three-way lovers’
quarrel. Given Tim Bristol’s description of him, the kid was
certainly promiscuous enough to have provoked such a scene. Why such
a quarrel might have driven Greenleaf to suicidal despair was
something only Paul Grandin could tell me.

***

Before heading for Mount Adams and Freddy Davis, I
looped around Clifton and dropped off the coroner’s report with
Terry Mu1hane’s secretary. Mulhane was still seeing patients—the
waiting room was stacked up like a lumberyard—so I left a message
for him to call me when he was free.