The Last Thing I Saw by Richard Stevenson

Author:Richard Stevenson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay mystery
Publisher: MLR Press LLC
Published: 2012-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I did eventually take Gomez up on his offer of some excellent weed—he had no beer on ice—and left his apartment well after midnight, three a.m. in the East. I collapsed into bed and slept deeply until my wake-up call went off like a tornado alert at eight in the morning.

I had two more appointments with embittered refugees from HLM set up for late in the day, and I thought I might track down Paul Delaney in the meantime. He still wasn’t answering his phone, and his mailbox continued to be full, both of which I didn’t like the sound of.

Out on the sunny hotel terrace with my coffee and grapefruit, I called Perry Dremel at HLM in New York. He said he was in a staff meeting and unable to chat. I asked if Boo Miller had been located yet. Dremel said no and hung up.

After several tries, I got Marsden Davis and asked for an update on the Bryan Kim murder investigation. Davis was in a hurry, on his way to a drug-gang shootout in Dorchester, and he told me that nothing in the Kim investigation was panning out yet but to stay in touch.

I got Timmy on his cell, but he couldn’t talk either, what with the state budget April first deadline looming and both the Legislature and the governor growing tense and testy.

Back in my room, I did a search on my laptop for Paul Delaney. I guessed he was an older man who still kept a land line, and indeed there he was in the L.A. telephone listings with an address in Santa Monica. I dialed the number again, but there was still no answer, mailbox full.

My rental Toyota came with its own GPS, and I let it lead me in its passive-aggressive way to Santa Monica and a pleasant three-story apartment building with a lot of balconies and flowering plants a couple of blocks from the beach. It took nearly an hour to drive the three and a half miles and then find a place to park legally, so by the time I approached the entrance and buzzed Delaney’s apartment, the morning was half gone. As I feared would happen, no one answered.

There was a little garden next to the entryway, and an old lady in a sun suit with a canary yellow bow in her canary yellow hair was sitting on a bench reading the L.A. Times.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” I said, “I’m looking for Paul Delaney. He’s not home. Do you know him?”

She looked wary. “Maybe.”

“He’s a friend of a man I’m trying to locate on behalf of his mother.” I showed her my New York State investigator’s ID.

“Paul’s mother is living? He never mentioned her to me.”

“No, it’s Paul’s friend’s mother. The man who is missing, Eddie Wenske.”

She perked up. “Oh, Eddie! That nice young man.”

“Yes, I believe he was staying with Paul for a while. Maybe he still is.”

“Oh no, he left. I haven’t seen Eddie for quite some time. I thought he was coming back.

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