Spider Season (17 page)

He glanced around uneasily, searching the shadows. I turned his face back toward mine.

“We’re alone, Ismael. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

I cupped the back of his head and drew his face toward mine. He didn’t resist, and, finally, we kissed. Looking back, I’m struck by how easily we can take kisses for granted, especially in L.A., where people dispense them like breath mints, even blowing them through the air when parting with the utmost insincerity. But that first kiss with Ismael was nothing like that.

In that singular, electrifying moment, I felt transported back to a more innocent and hopeful time, when I was discovering my own identity, figuring out who I was, finding my rightful place in the world, as Ismael was doing now. Back to a time when I was throwing off the shackles imposed on me by others, when the future seemed to stretch out infinitely and everything was possible. Maybe it was foolish to invest so much in one man, choosing Ismael to be the catalyst I needed, the one who would help me start over, as I sought one more chance to get it right. But those were the emotions that swelled in me at that moment, even more than the lust that had been heating up inside me since that night I laid eyes on him at A Different Light.

As we pressed our lips together, I could feel him relax as he got comfortable with the notion of kissing a man. Then our kisses became bolder, more urgent. I let him take the lead, not wanting to intimidate him, letting him discover where he was going on his own. As he led and I followed, he left no doubt that this was his natural course as a man; this was who he was, how he was meant to love. I touched him with almost painful tenderness—the fine contours of his face, the startling roughness of his beard, the firmness of his body as I pulled him closer to me, hungry for him. In turn, though more tentatively, he began to explore me, as curiously and innocently as the virgin that he was.

Then we heard footsteps nearby. Ismael separated from me and glanced anxiously around, a man still ashamed of displaying affection in public and terrified of being caught. I followed his eyes and saw a shadow disappear around the base of a dome, where moonlight bathed the white walls. Then I heard scrabbling feet.

“Probably just kids fooling around,” I said. “Believe me, Ismael, we aren’t the first gay couple to share a kiss up here.”

But the apprehension remained in his eyes. So I left him to take a look, following the descending footsteps. I trotted down the steps and around a balustrade, saw no one, and stopped to listen. The footsteps grew fainter until they were gone.

Ismael joined me. “Who was it?”

“Maybe a security guard who saw us and decided to give us a few more minutes together.”

“It’s past closing time,” Ismael said. “We probably should leave.”

I reached for his hand again, but this time he drew it away. We continued down, side by side but no longer physically joined. The steps swept to the right, curving around and down to a landing atop a final set of steps that led to the park grounds. I paused for a moment, realizing where we were: the setting for the knife fight in
Rebel Without a Cause
. An iconic movie, haunted by tragedy. James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo—three stars who died before their time, their deaths shrouded to varying degrees in violence or mystery. Mineo, the decidedly gay one in the group, knifed to death in the garage of his West Hollywood apartment building, a murder that had never been solved. The Griffith Park curse?

Somewhere below, an engine started up. I scanned the big parking lot until I saw headlights go on and then a car speeding toward the distant exit. The car was too far away in too little light for me to say for sure what model it was. But not so obscure that I couldn’t make out the dark bottom and light-colored top, not unlike the old two-tone Ferrari I’d seen in Jason Holt’s driveway, and the one I’d spotted earlier tonight on the street in Silver Lake, outside the restaurant

Or maybe not, I thought. It was dark and the disappearing car was a couple of hundred yards away. I’d been badly on edge lately, given all that had been happening. Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me. Maybe I was starting to see things that weren’t there.

I stood staring at the empty parking lot until Ismael said to me, “Benjamin, what is it? What did you see?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, which was the truth.

EIGHTEEN

I was so spooked by what I’d seen up at the observatory—or, more accurately, by my confusion about it—that I didn’t want to discuss it as Ismael drove down the hill.

An awkward silence crept between us, followed by stilted conversation. The evening’s spell had been broken, and I didn’t know how to get it back. Ismael dropped me off in the parking lot behind Skylight Books, where I’d left the Metro. I was still badly distracted and kissed him good night only perfunctorily, before driving home alone.

Unable to sleep, I stayed up most of the night reading an Alan Hollinghurst novel that Maurice had passed along to me. As well-written as it was, I found my mind wandering from the story every few lines, back to that phantom Ferrari streaking from the observatory parking lot, if that’s what I’d seen. I finally drifted off to a fitful sleep around dawn, only to be awakened a couple of hours later by the ringing phone.

When I picked up, the caller didn’t identify himself, but he didn’t have to. The snippy tone was unmistakably that of Jason Holt.

“I see you have a new boyfriend, Benjamin.”

The last time I’d heard that voice, as I drove away from his Nichols Canyon house, he’d been upbeat and flirtatious. Now he was back in his sinister mode. Keeping up with his shifting moods was like trying to grab mercury. I carried the phone into the kitchen to start water boiling for instant coffee.

“What can I do for you, Holt?”

“He’s marginally attractive, I suppose, if you like the swarthy type. Personally, I’ve always found Mexicans rather dirty looking. Especially the darker ones, like your new boyfriend.”

“Listen to me, Holt—”

“They all look like they need a good scrubbing, don’t you think? But maybe that’s why you find them so appealing, since you’re nothing but filth yourself.”

“Was that you up at the observatory? Did you follow us?”

“You’re making a big mistake, Benjamin, treating me like this. Consider yourself warned.”

The line went dead before I could interrupt again and tell Holt that he was pushing me further than was good for him. My hand was shaking as I placed the receiver back in its cradle. I stirred coffee crystals into a dirty mug and took my caffeine standing up, trying to contain my anger.

By the time the mug was empty, I’d decided to drive back up Nichols Canyon for another chat with Holt, and maybe a little more than that.

*   *   *

The circular driveway was empty when I arrived at Holt’s place, although the old Ferrari might have been in the garage. I pounded on the front door several times, hard enough to cause some paint to flake off and float to the tiled steps. No one answered my knock.

I followed the stepping-stones around the north side of the untended property, brushing cobwebs from my face and hair. I found the patio and rear yard deserted, so I rapped my knuckles against the dirty glass of the old French doors. There was no response. I shielded my eyes and peered in. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn across the big front windows to my left, leaving the living room in dim light. I squinted but couldn’t see anyone inside.

I rattled the latch and lock, finding them shaky, while I weighed how badly I wanted to gain entry and learn more about Holt, maybe even uncover some serious evidence that he was behind the harassment and vandalism that had me so worked up. I glanced around to make sure I was alone, then gave the door handle a few tugs. A dead bolt might have given me some trouble, but this was a standard lock, so old that most of the brass surface had been worn away. The screws were loose and the wood around them was on the verge of rot. I got a better grip and pulled with more force. I felt the lock separate from the brittle wood and the doors came open with a groan.

As I stepped in, my nose caught a musty smell that reminded me of every cut-rate antique store in Canoga Park. I shut the doors behind me, in case Holt had pets that might get out, while keeping my eye open for a dog that might still have teeth. None showed themselves. I ventured farther in.

Deep couches and chairs were arranged in the center of the living room, facing a stone fireplace built into the southeastern wall. On either side of the fireplace was a large, arched window that must have provided stunning views of Runyon Canyon and the city beyond when the heavy curtains were drawn back. Like the drapes, the furniture was plush but faded and worn from decades of sunlight and use.

A single, small light shone in the dimness. It illuminated a large portrait that hung above the mantelpiece and dominated the high-ceilinged room. The artist’s name, Charles Wu, a name I didn’t recognize, was etched in the lower right-hand corner, along with the year, 1997. His oil painting was of a younger Jason Holt, before all the reconstructive surgery had turned his face into a mask of futile vanity. The features were softer and more pliant, and blond highlights accentuated his darkening hair, apparently an effort to suggest what had once been its natural color. To my untrained eye, Wu’s portrait seemed competently executed but undistinguished, without much sense of life or depth. I studied it briefly but closely, trying to see something in it that might remind me of Holt thirty years ago, around the time he claimed we’d known each other in college. If I could remember him, I thought, and acknowledge it, then maybe he’d leave me alone.

I focused on the narrow, not-quite-pretty face, the yellow eyes given more color and set less closely together by the kindly artist. If there was one feature of Holt that Wu had captured perfectly, I thought, it was the self-absorbed gaze that seemed to extend only a short distance, as if into a mirror, before turning back on itself. In that respect, Wu had captured Holt’s overweening narcissism perfectly. I studied the face intently but couldn’t for the life of me recall ever meeting him before our recent encounter at A Different Light.

I gave up on the painting and crossed the expansive living room to a hallway that led to a series of smaller rooms. Most of the furniture was of dark wood and velvet, quite old and expensive looking. The general style was baroque, evoking a more opulent, showy era, which seemed to fit a designer like Silvio Galiano, whose heyday had been in the 1940s and ’50s, before Hollywood’s so-called golden age began to lose its luster.

I stuck my head into a room that appeared to be a study, a bookcase against one wall and an old, heavy desk in a corner. Facing me from the opposite wall was a fine-looking portrait of Galiano, whom I recognized from the photos that had accompanied his obituaries. It had been painted in his later years, when his dark hair had gone gray, but the artist had captured Galiano’s lively dark eyes, genial smile, and Italian good looks, along with his obvious sense of fashion. The painting’s depth and luminosity were striking. As I got closer, I was surprised to see that the signature on it was that of Charles Wu, who’d also rendered the less accomplished portrait of Holt that hung in the living room. This painting was distinguished by finer details and richer colors and a strong sense of mood, as if the artist had been deeply immersed in his subject. If I hadn’t known the same man had painted both portraits, I would never have guessed it.

The floor-to-ceiling bookcase was heavily stocked with large, illustrated books on Hollywood history, classic architecture, and interior design. On another wall was a gallery of framed photographs, all of which featured Galiano posed and smiling with people I presumed to be his friends and clients, many Hollywood luminaries among them. Judging by Galiano’s apparent age in the photos, they seemed to be arranged chronologically through the years, from left to right. Jason Holt appeared in the pictures toward the end, when the friends and clients had apparently become few and Galiano had become wizened and sickly looking, with a drawn, pallid face. As I reached the end of the gallery, I was in for another surprise. In the final few photos, presumably taken near the end of his life, Galiano looked considerably healthier—more flesh on his bones, more color in his face, more sparkle in his eyes—as if he’d suddenly found an elixir for whatever had ailed him. Oddly, it was in these last pictures, when Galiano looked so fit and happy, that Holt’s countenance seemed the most strained, with a fixed, camera-ready smile.

The only other photos in the room were arranged along a section of shelf, almost hidden among the books, like an obligation. If my guess was right, these were of Holt and his parents as he grew up, since he was recognizable in some of the later pictures, still as blond as he’d been as a toddler. There weren’t many. One photo captured his stiff, dour-looking parents in formal dress, assuming that’s who they were. A few more posed them with Holt in a rather ordinary suburban backyard, possibly New England, if the autumn colors were a good indication. In each picture, Holt was perfectly groomed and nattily dressed, his hair slicked down, his smile remarkably self-satisfied for one so young, as he basked in the spotlight. He gave me the impression of a worldly, calculating adult trapped in the body of a little boy. The effect was a bit chilling.

Then I came to a photo apparently taken in his college years, judging by the university sweatshirt he was wearing. It was the same school I’d attended, more evidence that he was telling the truth about having known me. He’d grown a mustache—sparse and blond, barely more than a smudge on his upper lip—but it was unmistakably Holt, looking as self-adoring as ever. I recalled that I’d worn a mustache myself around that time, also blond, though considerably thicker, which I’d shaved off during the wrestling season, as the coach required. It occurred to me that Holt might have grown his to mimic or impress me. I shuddered, thinking about it.

*   *   *

I spent only a minute or two in the first room before moving quickly down the hallway, where I stuck my head into the next door, which opened to a guest bedroom. I saw nothing I considered noteworthy and started up the stairway to the second floor.