The Retrieval (4 page)

That earned him another maternal pat, and, “Young men forget to eat. You need a nice, hearty meal, and you’ll feel better.”

Jake and Ducky were out in the small tiled courtyard, where the dog was considering, with the nose of a connoisseur, some cascading, red-flowered plant in a large, earthenware pot.

On hearing Charlie’s footsteps, Jake looked up and said, “This day’s not going the way it did when I rehearsed it.”

“That’s typical. Does Ducky intend to eat that plant or irrigate it?”

“I think he likes how it smells.” Without changing tones, Jake asked, “Did you mean what you implied upstairs or were you kidding?”

Charlie considered; it was too important a decision for him to be mistaken. Rushing like this was dangerous enough. “Seemingly, I meant it.” He shook his head. “Even though I’m not certain about what you’re after aside from some excellent natural light and a co-owner you know can still pay his share of the bills.”

“Not that. At least, not just that, although I sure like this house.” Jake’s face was a study in frustration. “It all seemed so straightforward while I was practicing my arguments that I didn’t stop to sort out what I was arguing for in the first place. Am I trying to stick you with a bum deal because I want a good place for my draftsman’s table when I work at home?”

“No, I don’t think you are.” Upon consideration, Charlie thought it more likely Jake was half-consciously angling for a domestic situation where he could find discreet steadies. Laura’s studio would have a fit if they found out about one-time flings at places like the Palace Baths. And Jake had that loyal streak of his.

Playing the harmless roommate would be a dull role but a pleasant one, given present company. And it wasn’t like Charlie wouldn’t gain the same private opportunities as Jake. Perhaps they should tell people one of them was renting from the other?

Realizing he’d decided, Charlie said, “Mind you, I get the downstairs study. And the larger of the two remaining bedrooms.”

Relief washed across Jake’s features. “Well, sure.”

“Also, you will be the one to explain this setup to Laura. When I wrote her--”

Jake looked alarmed. “Oh, shoot!”

“What?”

“We’re supposed to call Laura at one o’clock to tell her about those gifts for Lowery, while she still has time to make other arrangements if they’re too phony.” Jake checked his watch. “We have about a quarter of an hour to find a public telephone. Then we have to pick up my good suit from the laundry and give Ducky a run. Or maybe the other way around.”

“We also need to set up another appointment with Mrs. Hurley.” Charlie narrowed his eyes. “Will I ever get my lunch?”

“If all else fails, we can telephone from a drugstore and you can grab a sandwich.”

“Wonderful.” Charlie snapped his fingers for Ducky’s attention. “Come.” The dog came promptly to his side. “Sit.” Ducky sat.

“That’s impressive,” Jake said. “You’ve made clear who’s the boss.”

Charlie studied him balefully. “Experience tells me such first impressions never last long with the young.”

Jake rolled his eyes. “You’d be surprised.”

II

Right now, there wasn’t enough time for Charlie to brood about the morning’s revelations. There also wasn’t enough time for the long, vague, and boozy discussion of Jake’s private life that recent events required under the unwritten code of masculine friendship, subdivision homosexual. At least there was enough time to find a public telephone booth, although it proved to be outside a greengrocer’s rather than inside a drug store.

The line was clear enough for Charlie to hear the laughter in Laura’s lovely, lyric soprano when she said, “Given the harried tone to your greetings, I assume my purchases were duds.”

“Kiddo, what have I told you about assumptions? Your folk art is ancient enough to be burned as trash, and your temporary dog is regal enough to snub passers-by and make them like it.” Even as Charlie spoke, he turned to look through the glass panels and check that Ducky was still securely in the rumble seat, benevolently ignoring the attempts of three young girls on bicycles to woo him. “If Tildon did lift your wallet, at least you kept your checkbook.”

“Oh, good. So what’s the problem?”

“Someone -- now, who could that have been? -- went and gave Jake chores when he already had plans. You know that means he’ll try to do everything on both lists. When I show up at your house around three this afternoon, it’ll be with my shield or on it. If it’s the latter, apply taxidermy, put on my dinner jacket, and bring me along to tonight’s party. They’ll never know the difference.”

“Poor darling,” she cooed, all fake sympathy and genuine amusement.

“You say that now,” Charlie told her darkly as Jake moved into his field of vision within one of the greengrocer’s picture windows. Jake was holding up a bunch of bananas in his left hand and a bag of oranges in his right, shaking them questioningly. Charlie pointed at the bananas. He loved both, but bananas would result in a neater lunch. “Just wait until you hear about what else your brother managed to cross off his list this morning.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t bother wasting those ominously rising tones on me. He and I have already agreed that Jake’s the one who’s going to tell you about his latest escapade. But don’t waste your time worrying, either. Jake’s only working on his portrayal of independent yet responsible young man about Hollywood.”

There was an effective moment of silence before she sighed dramatically. Laura shared her twin’s expressiveness, but she had honed it into a tool with exacting precision. Her voice was unmistakably, wryly affectionate when she said, “I keep telling myself how happy I am that he’s not Mary Pickford’s brother Jack, complete with snow-sniffing and
spirochetes
.”

“As you damn well should be.”

“I know, I know. But you have to admit that Jake can cause more trouble by being upright…” She corrected herself. “And save me from five times as much trouble in the exact same way. Darn it, they’re calling me back onto the set. Can I talk to my very own Marx brother for a minute?”

“I’m afraid he’s busy buying me a banana.”

“Somehow I’ve never seen you as an ape. Maybe you’ll have something new to tell me this afternoon. Given this evening’s lollapalooza, I might be home early if we stay ahead of the shooting schedule. Until then, kisses all around. Don’t you dare break my only sibling.”

“As usual, you switched around your subject and object in that last sentence.”

Her departing chuckle was both musical and sultry. The fact that it didn’t arouse any base instincts was probably as good a confirmation of his sexual inclinations as Charlie was ever going to get. He hung up the receiver, smiling, and went to see how much fruit lay in his immediate future.

The answer turned out to be a fair amount. Ducky seemed very willing to share the bananas, but they managed to dissuade him with a hasty side trip to a butcher’s. That also resulted in a trip to a hardware store for a drinking bowl, at which point Jake gave up and provided Charlie with a swift motor tour of the area.

“After all, you’ll be around for a while, and you can’t keep asking me where you are forever. When I’m not spending precious days off helping my migrating pals, I work for a living,” Jake said.

“I somehow can tell you distrust my navigational skills.”

“If most of the streets and avenues back in Manhattan weren’t numbered sequentially, I would have spent a lot of gay hours retrieving you from Brooklyn and the Bronx.”

“Now you can send off Ducky to find me with a cask of brandy tied beneath his neck.” Charlie turned briefly to smile at the dog who was presently licking his chops with judicious satisfaction.

“There’s a notion. Hey, Ducky, what do you say we go up into the hills and you can try outdoing a Saint Bernard?”

Seemingly, Ducky enjoyed being consulted about plans for his future. He woofed pleasantly.

“If Mrs. Lowery has any sense, she’ll loan you to Cosmic to compete with Rex the Wonder Dog,” Jake told Ducky, and headed them up past Sunset Boulevard.

They had bought a longer lead at the hardware store, so it wasn’t difficult to find an appropriate stretch of road a mile or two up one of the spur canyons past where pavement gave way to dirt. Ducky, who didn’t seem to have been in Southern California for long, was obviously fascinated by these new surroundings with their unfamiliar smells. To give credit where it was due, he held to his training. But every now and then Charlie would stop and give Ducky formal permission to investigate something particularly interesting. He felt as if he were dispatching a senior ambassador to convey a series of strongly-worded ultimatums to various nations of gophers and squirrels.

As they strolled along, keeping a watch on Ducky, the two of them chatted about people they both knew until Jake interrupted the discussion with, “I’m wasting my chance.”

“What chance is that?” Charlie received the latest report from Ducky before sending him off to inspect an oak tree.

The frown on Jake’s face as he waited was thoughtful, not impatient. “My first real chance to pry you open all the way. Everything’s fair game now.” His frown warmed into a smile. “You’re a story-teller. Tell me some stories about yourself.”

“Why in the--” Charlie started to ask and then realized he was being foolish. He’d had a figurative finger in Jake’s metaphorical pie for years. But, of necessity, Charlie had kept much of his own life to himself. Jake had good instincts. He’d want to fix this imbalance in their friendship as soon as he could, now that neither of them needed to hide. “Well, all right. I could bore you with tales of my youth while we walk.”

“Was that a different youth than the one I had in Hell’s Kitchen?” Jake asked.

“Point taken. A very different youth and, as such, not boring to you. Therefore, let me describe the strange zoological garden that is Beacon Hill as seen through the eyes of a rather queer youngster.”

Charlie’s own life lacked the order and meaning he built into his books, but it was still pleasant to shape the haphazard events into coherence, to watch someone else’s reaction to all those long-lost days with Mother and Father, James, Ruth, and Uncle Prescott. Jake’s looks became even more striking when he listened, which he did with attention and the occasional, good-natured wisecrack.

As he considered Jake’s irreverent opinion of Lacrosse, Charlie realized with a pulse-racing shock that he wanted Jake fiercely and now, wanted to pin him down while sampling with touch and tongue every stripped naked, formerly forbidden, inch of him.

Well. Charlie was neither a saint nor a fool. He would have to proposition Jake soon and put the possibility firmly behind them. But such a question would need to be asked after careful planning and with a light touch. Not even for the sake of his sporadic daydreams about getting his hands on the attractions concealed by those summer-weight trousers would Charlie risk upsetting a pal who could remember on a crowded day like this to offer a choice between oranges and bananas. Right now, Charlie needed to calm down.

Bananas and oranges were Charlie’s favorites, but Laura was a big fan of grapes. They might be able to stop by that greengrocers before they went over to her place and--

With a start, Charlie interrupted both his wandering thoughts and his telling of tales out of prep school to check his wristwatch. “Jake, it’s a quarter past two.”

“Oh, hell, my laundry. Ducky, c’mere!”

The dog, who had been stretched out on a patch of dusty grass with the waywardly pleased air of a young noble successfully slumming, clambered to his feet and trotted over.

“We have to be going,” Jake told Ducky, putting the leash back on. “Heel, okay?”

Apparently, heeling was, indeed, okay. The three of them hiked quickly back to the roadster and drove down to Sunset Boulevard before turning toward Beverly Hills to the west.

As they turned again onto some north-south avenue or other, “Get my wallet out of my breast pocket and find the laundry ticket for my evening jacket, would you?” Jake asked. His eyes were narrowed and he had the look, if not the driving style, of a man competing for a Grand Prix trophy.

Charlie shook his head even as he reached over to grope around inside Jake’s suit coat. “This will save you, oh, thirty seconds?”

“Thirty seconds here, thirty seconds there, pretty soon you have time to eat another banana.” A smile flicked onto Jake’s lips and away.

Few things were as appealingly amusing as Jake determined to be on time. It was just as well that Jake was driving, his attention on the road. By the time they found the laundry building, Charlie was wondering if he might be lost again, and not only among the streets of greater Los Angeles.

***

Laura hadn’t run mad when she bought in Beverly Hills last year, but the property still wasn’t anything that could be called inconspicuous. Her vaguely Italianate house was better than twice the size of the one Charlie and Jake had toured this morning and was shielded by a yard filled with well-tended hedges and young trees. Unlike at every other place they’d parked today, Jake’s roadster didn’t stand out. In fact, there was a second roadster on the brick drive in front of the front door. Aside from the other coupe’s pale green color, the two cars were obviously an identical pair.