Chapter 2

July 22, 1996

Evening

El Matador was a Spanish-style courtyard building built in the twenties. The stucco was a fading terra cotta with reddish brown trim and woodwork. There was a fountain, which no longer worked but still had wonderful handmade tilework. The stairs, both up to the back of the building and up to our unit, had red tiles as tread and those same handmade tiles between.

Our co-op was on the west side of the building, in the front on the second floor. It was one of four larger two-bedroom units, with a dining room, a large living room, a kitchen with a tiny breakfast nook and three Juliet balconies.

We'd closed early in June. It was an all-cash offer, sixty thousand dollars, so it was an easy closing. Ronnie immediately began rehabbing the apartment and volunteered to be on the homeowner's board. He fully intended to turn the place condo within a year, which would double or triple the value. Not that we would sell it, but we could easily get a second that would provide down payment money for another… Even thinking about it is a little exhausting.

Ronnie was sure we'd be in by Thanksgiving. I thought spring '97 more likely. We'd already had the floors sanded, stained and varnished. Given the age of the building, we were told that was the last time it could be done. In twenty or twenty-five years the wood itself would need to be replaced. To Ronnie, who was more than twenty years younger than I am, that seemed an eon. Something we'd never have to worry about. To me, it was just around the corner, just the way my life of twenty years ago felt. Reachable. Touchable. Yesterday. Tomorrow.

Painters were next; the kitchen and bathroom were both being retiled. As was the tiny breakfast nook. Ronnie had decided that walls in there should be tiled too. Halfway up in light blue with painted Mexican tiles on the edge. We were using lots of Mexican tiles which sort of matched the tilework on the fountain and steps in the courtyard. At least, in spirit. Ronnie had even figured out a way to put in a stackable washer and dryer on the landing right outside the kitchen door. Technically a ‘common' space, but he'd already worked his magic with the board.

I'd left work at four-thirty for a meeting with a painter. I didn't really need to be there. Ronnie was making the decisions—though I suppose it was nice of him to pretend I had a say. I would have begged off except there wasn't that much going on at The Freedom Agenda. We were ready for the deposition on Wednesday. Karen had run Vera Korenko's name through Lexis/Nexis and not found anything too old, and the avalanche of mail we got from prisoners wanting to be freed had slowed almost to a stop after Lydia (or rather I) had shot one of our clients.

Still, I was late. When I walked in I stopped to look at the floors, which I hadn't seen. They looked amazing. It was the first thing we'd done which hinted at what the place would be like someday. I was getting excited about living there, just Ronnie and me.

Ronnie Chen, a swirling mix of Chinese, Vietnamese, Irish, Native American and a few more ethnicities, was small, in his late twenties, and, to me at least, gorgeous. I found him in the kitchen with the painter.

"My tile guy says we should tile first," he said to the painter. He was roughly around my age, growing in the middle and dressed in overalls that advertised his trade.

"Yeah, they always do," he said. "They just want to make a mess and leave it for me to clean up."

"I see," Ronnie said skeptically.

"Since you're on a tight deadline, you should let schedules decide. Whoever's available first goes first."

When I stepped into the small kitchen, the first thing I noticed was a Kelly-green sink sitting on the counter. I didn't remember talking about that.

Ronnie said, "This is my partner, Dom Reilly."

"Hey," he said to me. "Bob Flannigan. You guys flipping this place?"

I almost said ‘not that kind of partner,' but we were also that kind of partner. Ronnie breezed through it saying, "Oh no, we'll be living here. That's why everything matters so much. It's going to be our home."

Flannigan just said, "Oh. Okay." He had to have encountered this before. It was Long Beach after all.

"Let me show you the color I've chosen for the kitchen," Ronnie said, picking up a handful of swatches.

"It's this one," he said, pointing to a very pinky beige.

"Isn't that a bit subtle for you?" I asked. He hadn't shown me this. Nor had he talked to me about the green sink.

"This is the tile," he said, picking up a tile off the counter. It was a mix of cobalt blue, Kelly green and the pinky beige. It was pretty, but…

"Wow. Isn't that going to be a lot?"

"If we had more counter space, yes. But we only have ten feet of countertop with a sink in the middle. It's exactly the kind of kitchen where you can make this kind of statement."

I didn't know what that statement was going to be, but he was right, the kitchen was small. All the cupboards and counter were on the one side. The other side had space for a range and the refrigerator. There was a door to the dining room, another to the breakfast nook and a third out to the landing. A small kitchen with that many doors did take some cleverness, so maybe he was right.

"What about the other rooms?" Flannigan asked.

"Well, we just need you to paint the bedrooms, the dining room and hallway, and the bathroom. We're going to do the living room ourselves."

"We are?"

"It'll be easy. Trust me."

I had no idea what he meant. If it was that easy, why weren't we painting the whole apartment ourselves? Ronnie led the painter out of the kitchen, through the dining room to the bedrooms and the bathroom. I wandered back to the living room. It did not look easy to paint. For one thing, it had ceilings that needed to be painted, cathedral ceilings. I told myself it didn't matter. Would I climb to the top of a ladder for Ronnie? Yes, of course. Would I make him explain why I had to do that? Also, yes.

Standing in there, I wondered if we'd be taking the furniture from 2nd Street or if we'd be buying new? And then, Ronnie and Flannigan were back. Before the painter could leave, I said, "Make sure the ceilings are on the quote. All of them."

"Got it," he said, and slipped out the door.

I turned to Ronnie and asked, "What do you mean it's going to be easy?"

"We're going to rag-roll it. The walls are perfect for it."

The walls were textured plaster made to look like it had just been applied.

He continued, "We'll get pigment from Home Depot and mix it with white paint. Then we dilute it with water and roll it on to the wall with rags. I'm thinking a pale buttery yellow, a lemon-y yellow, and a honey color."

"You're making me hungry," I said, honestly.

"Perfect. It's dinner time. Where do you want to go?"

"Let's just stop at the Park Pantry."

Ten minutes later, we were in a booth at the Park Pantry, which was an upscale diner on the corner of Junipero and Broadway. We were seated in a teal-colored booth on the Junipero side. I asked for an Arnold Palmer while Ronnie got a glass of the house white. Before the waitress could slip away, Ronnie said, "We can order. I know what we want. I'll have the salmon, baked potato, and a salad with ranch. Dom will have the chicken Caesar, chopped and tossed. You can bring it all at once. Thanks!"

After the waitress wandered off, I told Ronnie all about the ‘favor' I'd been asked to do for Edwin and his brother. Skipping the part about my getting an extra cash payment.

"So, you're not getting paid extra?" he asked right off the bat.

Avoiding a direct lie, I said, "Things are pretty slow right now." Which was true. I did have time to do it.

"This guy, their uncle, had a fiancé in the forties and then never married afterward," he said skeptically. "Ping. Ping. Ping. My gaydar is going off."

"I think they would have mentioned if they thought he was gay," I said, though even as I said it, I realized they probably wouldn't. Jan was definitely a homophobe. Often, homophobes had an incredible ability to not see the obvious.

"But it has crossed your mind, hasn't it?"

"He says he killed his fiancé. That doesn't seem very gay to me."

"Maybe she was going to expose him. Wouldn't he have lost his law license for being gay? Gay sex has only been legal in California since the seventies."

"How do you know that?"

"It's in one of the brochures at The Center."

"Oh. Well, I'm going to have to find out about this guy one way or the other."

"Should we bet?"

"No," I said. "You always win."

"You're no fun."

The waitress brought our drinks.

"When exactly do you think we're going to paint the co-op?"

"Saturday morning. I'm not scheduling clients all day. We have that commitment ceremony in the afternoon."

"That's not enough time to paint."

"Well, I don't expect to finish. What are you going to wear?"

"Something old."

"I mean to the commitment ceremony."

"Something like this. It's not black tie, is it?"

"God, no. We need to buy Hawaiian shirts."

"Is that on the invitation?"

"No, but that's what everyone's doing. Robert and Doug met in Hawaii. Don't you think that will be cute if we all show up that way?"

I knew Robert and Doug from working at The Hawk. Actually, I knew most everyone in town from working at The Hawk. They were more Ronnie's friends though. He'd helped them buy a three-bedroom Spanish house in California Heights and they all volunteered at The Center. I was pretty sure they were the ones trying to get Ronnie onto the board of directors.

After dinner, I drove Ronnie the three blocks back to the co-op and dropped him off in front of his car. He kissed me and said, "See you at home."

I got there and found a parking spot before he did. Walking up the front steps, I grabbed the mail and went inside. In the living room, Junior Clybourne was watching Jeopardy! as he did most every night. He loved the show and spent most of the half an hour shouting out the wrong answers.

I shuffled through the mail as I walked across the room.

"Hello, darling," Junior said. "The questions are so easy tonight."

"Mmmm-hmmm," I said.

Our electric bill, an invitation to a charity event for Ronnie, a credit card statement for our roommate John, something official looking for Junior, and a card for me. I spread it all out on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

The card had an Illinois postmark and no return address. I got them from time to time, though it was unexpected since we weren't close to any holidays. I opened it. The front of the card was a bodybuilder in a tiny speedo. Inside, it said ‘I know what you want for Christmas.' Beneath that, handwritten, it said, ‘Going on a cruise. Will be at the Westin for one night. Can you meet at the lobby bar around four on Sunday afternoon?' Per our agreement, it wasn't signed.

When I heard the front door open and Ronnie come in, I threw the card into the trash. I didn't want him to see it. Usually, when the cards came he'd tease me and sometimes ask to see them. If he saw this one, he'd want to go with me to the Westin. And that couldn't happen.

Ronnie usually had clients most of Sunday. I could probably go and he'd have no idea. But that wasn't the question. The question was, did it feel safe?