The Bottle Ghosts (19 page)

Finally, he came into the meeting room, closing the door behind him.

He'd no sooner sat down when Carl said: “We had a call from the police. They said John had filed a missing persons report on Andy and wanted to know if we might know where he was. Why would they call us? I don't even know their last names!”

“They called everyone, I suspect,” Oaks said, and everyone nodded, including Jonathan and me. “Was anyone able to tell them anything?”

Headshakes all around, though I tried to observe any sort of reaction that might give lie to the nod, until Carl spoke again. “Gee, a missing drunk! How often do you suppose that happens?” He laughed, but no one else joined him. He scowled around the group, then said “Oh, lighten up, fer chrissakes!”

Brian chose to ignore him.

“Well, if anyone does see Andy or hear anything, please be sure to tell the police. I have the number to call if anyone didn't write it down.”

“Does anyone have John and Andy's phone number?” I asked. “I'd like to give John a call to see how he's doing.”

Everyone either looked blank, or shook their heads. I was aware of something…odd?…in the way Brian Oaks looked at me when he said: “As you know, Dick, we try to protect the members' privacy as much as we can. I'll give John a call and relay everyone's concern and best wishes.”

Did I just hear a door slam?
I wondered.
And why was he looking at me like that?

Rather surprisingly, that was it. The rest of the meeting was taken up with a discussion of the various members' experiences with either their or their partners' not showing up somewhere because of drinking, and how each handled it.

*

Neither Jonathan nor I said anything until we got to the car and headed home.

“Was something wrong with that picture?” Jonathan asked.

“You mean that one of the synagogue stained glass windows with the pork chop motif? Yeah, it did strike me as a little…surreal. But I guess when you think about it, given the way the group seems to work, maybe not. And Carl's comment did have some truth to it. They probably would have reacted differently if they knew about the others.”

Jonathan scooted a bit closer and put his hand on my leg, casually.

“So tell me about Nowell,” I said. “Did you have a chance to talk to him at all?”

“A little. He was just bringing in water for the coffee when I got there, and I helped him set the table up. I asked him how he liked working for Qualicare, and he said ‘Fine.' Period. I didn't let on that I knew he
didn't
work for them. He didn't ask where you were, or why I was there alone, or anything. I told him I'd taken the bus and asked him how long it took him to get there. He said he walks.”

He rubbed his hand lightly across the top of my leg, then said: “He's really kind of strange, you know? I don't know if he's always that way, or just around gay guys, or…”

“You don't think he's gay, then?”

He gave a lower-jaw-jutted-sideways semi lip-purse (hey, I calls 'em the way I sees 'em) and said: “I honestly don't know. I caught him looking at me a couple times, but it wasn't really in a cruisy kind of way, I don't think; just sort of like he was watching Tim and Phil in their aquarium. Maybe like he's looking for something…” He shook his head quickly and looked out the window. “I really don't know.”

Now, if Nowell had indeed been employed by Qualicare, my automatic assumption would probably have been that he was straight and either was uncomfortable around gays or just wasn't quite sure how to act around them. But because he was somehow—exactly how and why was another question—employed by a gay psychologist and seems to have taken some sort of interest in my partner…

Hardesty!
my mind scolded.

Okay, okay.

But it all
was
interesting, to say the least.

*

I'm not really all that big on the hidden meaning of dreams, but I know pretty well by now when I'm trying to tell me something, and the dream I had Thursday night would have needed no help from Brian Oaks—or a three-month-old chimpanzee, for that matter—to interpret. I was on the Titanic, watching the water moving quickly toward me up the sloping deck. Long, bone-deep blasts from the ship's fog horn reverberated across the black, flat sea, calling desperately for help that would never come. I tried frantically to first walk, then run, backward, away from the water which came ever closer, faster and faster. I was suddenly aware of six men standing beside me, holding onto the sharply slanted railing, and calmly staring out into the night. I felt a hand on my shoulder…

“Dick! Dick! Wake up!”

My eyes shot open to see a concerned Jonathan, his face about a foot from my own. Seeing I was okay, his face broke into a sleepy grin.

“Boy, that must have been some dream! You were kicking your heels into the mattress so hard I thought you'd walk yourself right up the headboard!”

I managed a small grin and reached out to hug him to me. He was warm and smelled of sleep. “I'm sorry, Tiger. I
never
have nightmares. I have no idea where that one came from.”

I lied.

“Go back to sleep.” I pushed him gently back onto the pillow.

“Okay,” he said, and he did. I did not.

By the time I got to work Friday morning, I was fairly certain of one thing: I
was
on the Titanic as far as this case was concerned. It was definitely time for Plan B, whatever in the hell that might be.

I sat at my desk in the kind of wading-through-molasses stupor that comes from waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep until six minutes before it was time to get up. The paper was open in front of me, the pen beside the unworked crossword puzzle, and while I knew it was there, I didn't really see it. God, I hate mornings like that. I should have just stayed home!

After a full pot of coffee, I was a little better able to make sense of everything my mind had been churning out ever since Jonathan woke me from the nightmare.

I realized that while everything I'd done up to this point hadn't been a total loss, continuing on the same course wasn't likely to take me any farther than where I was now. I'd found out a lot more than I might have if Jonathan and I had not joined the group, but I sensed I'd gotten just about as much out of it as I was going to get. Whoever was doing whatever it was he was doing at least now knew that he'd better watch his step.

There, of course, still wasn't enough proof of any crime for the police to step in, and guys who get away with multiple murders tend to get a little complacent about their chances for ever getting caught. So it was time I took a more direct approach before somebody else disappeared.

*

When I felt sufficiently confident of being able to handle complete sentences, I called Mark Richman at police headquarters and told him that I was taking a new tack on the case, though I didn't go into details mainly because I didn't have any. I did tell him that I'd be sure to keep him posted. When I hung up with him, I called Marty Gresham and told him the same thing. He wished me luck. He also told me to give him a call if he could do anything to help—he was really getting into this detective thing, I could tell. I assured him that I would. I then hung up the phone and…well…just sat there.

That was fun,
my mind said. Now
what'll we play?

Good question.

Rather than panic, I determined to force myself to do the crossword puzzle. But when I couldn't even come up with a simple eight-letter word for “redundancy” beginning with “p”, I gave up in disgust. (Oh, come on: you know it's “pleonasm”.)

So I just sat there drinking more coffee and playing beaver with a couple of formerly unsharpened Number Two Ticonderoga pencils.

Well, I'd start with John, Andy's lover. John…Ellison. I'd start with him since Andy was the most recent to disappear. And there had been something that had been subtly niggling at me since I talked with Bob some time ago. What was it? Oh, yeah, Brian's brother…Ben? Maybe he might be able to tell me a little more about Brian.

So I guess I wasn't really at a dead end after all, and I felt better about that. But I was also still dead tired, so I did something I'd never done before: I got up from my desk, locked the office door, and went over to lie down on the couch to rest for a few minutes.

*

I'd no sooner closed my eyes than the phone rang.

Damn! No rest for the wicked…or the weary…
or whatever in hell the saying is!

I was surprised, when I answered, to hear Jonathan's voice.

“Hi, Dick,” he said, in his usual upbeat way that always gave me an oddly warm feeling.

“Jonathan. What's up?” He never called this early in the day.

Probably sensing the puzzlement in my voice, he paused just a second, then said: “Nothing. I just wanted to see how you were doing. I'm on my lunch hour, and…”

Lunch hour? I looked at my watch and it said 12:25! How in the hell did
that
happen?

“I'm fine, Tiger, thanks. Everything okay with you?”

“Sure! I was just worried about you.”

There's that warm feeling again. “Well, I really appreciate it. I was just getting ready to go grab a sandwich for lunch.”

Liar!

“Yeah, I'd better be getting back to work, too. We just got a big order from Qualicare for a whole bunch of trees, so I guess I'll be spending a lot more time around there for awhile.”

It occurred to me that I hadn't discussed our leaving the group with him. I hoped he wouldn't mind, though I know he kind of enjoyed the meetings.

“Okay. We'll catch up tonight. See you at home.”

*

Well, what I'd said about just getting ready to have lunch was only a partial lie. As soon as we hung up, I did run down to the diner for a tuna salad on rye with a side of potato salad. I was hungrier than I'd thought.

As soon as I walked back into the office, I picked up the phone book to see if John Ellison might be listed. He wasn't. Damn. What was Andy's last name? Porter? Potter? Phillips! Andy Phillips. And there he was, right where he should be, between “Phillips, Alan” and “Phillips, Arthur.” I jotted down the number, then flipped through to find the “Oaks”. There were about twelve “Oaks” listed, but only one “Brian,” and only one “Benjamin.” I wrote down both numbers and both addresses.

As usual, though I didn't really expect anyone to be home, I called Andy Phillips' number. No answer, no machine. I then dialed the number for “Benjamin Oaks.” It rang three times and I was about ready to hang up when I heard the receiver being lifted and a child's voice saying: “Who's this?”

Well, so much for Ben Oaks' being gay—if I had the right Benjamin Oaks, of course.

“Hi. Is your daddy home?”

“No.” Long silence.

“Uh, is your mommy home?”

“Yes.” Long silence.

“Can I talk to her, please?”

“Uh huh…
Mom-mie!
” There was no attempt to put a hand over the mouthpiece, and the result was enough to make me yank the phone away from my ear.

A moment later, as I gingerly brought the phone back to my head, a woman's voice said: “Yes?”

“Mrs. Oaks,” I began with my usual awkwardness when I'm not sure I have the right number, “my name is Hardesty, and I'm trying to locate the brother of Brian Oaks.”

A medium-sized silence, and then: “Yes, that's my husband's brother.”

“What time do you expect your husband home? I'd like to talk with him, if I could.”

“About what?”

Damn it, lady, I
hate
when people do that!

“Nothing all that important,” I said, trying to keep it pleasant. “Just an Oaks family matter I'd like to discuss with him. When did you say I could reach him?”

“He'll be home around seven. What was your name again?”

One, two, three…deep breath.

“Hardesty, ma'am. Dick Hardesty. I'll call back around seven.”

“We'll be having dinner then.”

I'm
so
glad I'm not straight!

“Well, then, I'll try between eight and eight thirty. Thank you for your help.” And I hung up.

*

While I was having my Manhattan, I explained to Jonathan that we wouldn't be going back to the Qualicare meetings, and why. He seemed mildly disappointed, as I suspected he would, but said he understood.

“You won't mind if I go to an A.A. meeting every now and then, though, will you? It's kind of hard to explain to someone who's not an alcoholic, but it's really important for me to remind myself every now and then of where I've been. The group really did that for me.”