“I don’t remember that. When?”
“Years ago,” I said. “Tiny little place over in Studio City. Disco music, serious drinking, lots of guys who didn’t look at all like you. Past Universal City—back of an auto body shop.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “The Fender. Closed down a long time ago— I actually took you there?”
“Right after our first case together—the Handler murder. The way I figured it, some friendship rapport was developing and you were still nervous.”
“About what?”
“Being gay. You’d already made the grand confession. I didn’t get overtly repulsed, but you probably figured I needed more testing.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Testing you for what?”
“Tolerance. Could I really handle it.”
“Why am I not remembering any of this?”
“Advanced middle age,” I said. “I can describe the room precisely: aluminum ceiling, black walls, Donna Summer on tape loop, guys going off in pairs.”
“Whoa,” he said. Then nothing.
A few miles later he said, “You weren’t overtly repulsed. Meaning?”
“Meaning, sure, it threw me. I grew up with sissies getting beat up on the school yard and ‘fag’ as acceptable speech. I never pounded on anyone, but I never stepped in to stop it either. When I started working, my practice emphasized traumatized kids, and homosexuality never came up much. You were the first gay person I’d ever known socially. You and Rick are still the only gay people I know in depth. And sometimes I’m not sure about you.”
He smiled. “Aluminum ceilings . . . guys who didn’t look like me, huh? So who’d they look like?”
“More like Andrew Salander.”
“There you go,” he said. “I am the great individualist.”
The Cloisters was on Hacienda just north of Santa Monica, notched unobtrusively into the gray side wall of a two-story building. It was nearly three A.M., but unlike the postnuclear silence of the Valley, the streets here were alive, lit by a steady stream of headlights, sidewalk cafes still serving a garrulous clientele, the pavement crowded with pedestrians—mostly, but not exclusively, male. West Hollywood was one of the first L.A. neighborhoods to earn itself a nightlife. Now people emerge for after-dark strolls in Beverly Hills, Melrose, Westwood. One day, Los Angeles may grow up and become a real city.
I found a parking space half a block up, and we walked to the front door. No bouncer on duty and we stepped right in. I’d allowed myself the luxury of prediction and expected the place to be stone walls, refectory windows, gothic gloom. It turned out to be off-white plaster, recessed lighting dimmed to soft-and-easy, a mahogany-and-black-granite bar with a brass rail and beige suede stools, a few booths along the opposite wall. Light classical music eased from unseen speakers, and the conversation from the fifteen or so men inside was low and relaxed. Casually but well-dressed men in their thirties and forties. Shrimp and meatball bar snacks, toothpicks sporting colored cellophane frizz. But for the fact that there were only men, it could’ve been an upscale lounge in any slick suburb.
Andrew Salander was easy to spot, working alone behind the bar, wiping down the granite, refilling glasses, attending gregariously to half a dozen patrons. His dress duds were a pale blue button-down shirt under a white-and-blue-striped apron. We were right in his face when he noticed us—first me, then Milo, back to me, back to Milo. One of the drinkers saw the scared-animal heat in his eyes and turned toward us with hostile curiosity. Milo leaned on the bar and nodded at him, and the man returned to his Scotch.
“Mr. Sturgis?” said Salander.
“Hi, Andy. Anyone to cover for you?”
“Uh . . . Tom’s on break— Hold on, I’ll get him.” Salander ran through a rear door with a tall young man dressed in a similar shirt and apron, holding a cigarette. Tom stubbed out his light and put on a smile, and Salander came around through Dutch doors at the other end of the bar.
“Please tell me this isn’t business,” he said to Milo. “Please.”
Milo eased him toward the door. Waited to say “Sorry,” until we were outside.
Salander wept. “It can’t be— I can’t believe it, why would anyone hurt her?”