Harlan's Race

detective lieutenant started in on Chris.
    “Were you working for somebody? You tell us, maybe we can go to bat for you with the D.A.”
    But Chris’ eyes had closed. He was past plea bargains and D.A.s. His eyes didn’t open again.
    At midnight, when the detective lieutenant let us off on Rosewood Avenue and drove away, Chino and I stood looking at each other for a moment. The hot September night was dead still. We were both exhausted from the long day of danger and emotion. I was dropping in my tracks.
    “Russell says he’ll go on investigating,” Chino said. “The questions are huge.”
    “So last summer,” I said hoarsely, “he did the most unexpected thing of all. He fucking put a move on me.” Chino’s eyes were full of his own pain. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
    “He was that secret, guilty, magic, kid love. I trusted it.” ‘You should have told me he came to see you. It would have saved us all the hassle,” he said.
    “The dreams I kept having,” I said. “Somehow I knew.” ‘Yeah, you did. A fighter learns to trust that.”
    “If it hadn’t been for you getting me so spooky,” I added, “I might have taken him to bed.”
    “And,” Chino said softly, “he might have cut your throat when you got him there.”

    t about 2 a.m. that morning, the whole family was
    sitting around slumped in Vince’s back garden. Enough chairs had been dragged from both houses. Coffee mugs and pop cans stood around. Even Paul’s cat looked limp, laying on top of the garden wall.
    For five of us — Harry, Chino, Russell, Vince, myself— it was “mission complete”. We should have been feeling elated. The ritual wild party to unwind. Hadn’t we done something that homos dream of doing? Hadn’t I drawn my sword against the strangers who killed Billy? But I felt sad beyond expression. So did everyone else — deeply depressed, profoundly introspective, full of questions. John Sive, Marian, Michael, Astarte, Paul and Darryl were also there, and they’d caught our mood. Michael and Astarte were still in shock that someone had tried to kill Michael. John’s angry eyes told me that he sensed things had happened behind his back.
    I was the only one on my feet—prowling around, walking this way and that, listening to the sounds of the L.A. night, possessed by the questions. Whining uncertainly, my dog trailed after me. A faint hot breeze was rustling the palm fronds and bamboos around us. For the rest of my life, I would never hear foliage rustling with innocence of old. Always and forever, it would bring up the maze of green.
    Lance and Bob had just arrived in their rental car — they’d brought the news that Chris had died at midnight.
    “Guys,” I told them, “we owe you one.”
    “No sweat,” said Lance. “Small favor for all the coffee, right?”
    “Look at it this way,” added Bob. “We coulda spent the day trapping stray cats. Right?”
    The two redneck bonniker cops seemed to have adjusted to the company of queers. Lance had his gorilla arm draped across Bob’s shoulders.
    “So this Shelboume was some kind of special-warfare guy who went bad?” said Lance, trying to be helpful.
    Russell and Harry had brought several bottles of bourbon, and they were already half-plowed. Chino was on the verge of falling off the wagon. He had his first glass of bourbon in one hand, but he hadn’t chugged it yet.
    Suddenly Chino hurled his shot glass against the patio wall. It shattered into ten thousand bits.
    Then he left, and we heard the engine of his Land Rover cough into life. He would probably drive over to Venice and sit on the beach in the dark for a while, and pull himself together. Everybody else watched the bourbon running down the wall, into the rose-bed.
    “By the way,” Harry said. “One loose end.”
    He handed Michael the latest note found taped to his gate.
    CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR WIN, DARLING. I’M GOING BACK TO NEW YORK, BUT I’LL BE IN TOUCH.
    LOVE, MOM
    For a few minutes, we were all silent, listening to the bamboos clacking together. Finally I stood up. My mind roared with the questions.
    “Always do the unexpected, right?” I said.
    As the family stared at me, I picked up the bottle of bourbon that Chino had poured from. I hunted around for a clean glass. “Tonight,” I said, “I’m going to get drunk.”
    Vince got a glass, too. ‘Whither thou goest,” he said.
    TWENTY-FOUR
    July 1990
    Great South Bay, New York
    Sitting in the boat, remembering, I