Chapter 8

July 25, 1996

Thursday afternoon

Around lunchtime, John ran out to get us Mexican food at a place nearby. I sat on one of the boxes we'd pulled into the hallway and went through the accordion files starting in 1990. Gas, electric, telephone, long distance (MCI)—Patrick barely made any long-distance calls—American Express, bank statements (Security Pacific), service records for a 1982 Mercedes 300, maintenance on the house which was at 410 N. Faring Road—monthly landscaping bills, trash pickup, air conditioning maintenance, furnace maintenance, plumber (he came a lot) and a pool service.

There were no canceled checks. I checked the other accordion files and found nothing. I took out the bank statements and looked at them closely. They didn't give any information about who checks were written to, but I could make some guesses. For example, every week or so a check was cashed for $60. My guess was that this was a maid who came weekly.

At the beginning of each month there was a deposit of $5,000. There was also an automatic payment of $993.16 on the second Tuesday of the month. This guy was living on almost $6,000 a month, and he wasn't even spending it all. The beginning balance in January 1990 was $2,354. The closing balance was $2,987. I pulled out the January bills and was able to match the amounts for most of them. American Express was the largest bill at $1,789 for December. A number of charges from department stores, which were probably Christmas gifts, seven lunches or dinners it didn't specify. Two of them at The Ivy, which was a favorite industry haunt. Gasoline for his Mercedes. A weekly charge at Gelson's, a high-end grocery store. Nearly two hundred each time which seemed like a lot. Was he buying a lot of alcohol? There was also a charge for the florist at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills. That snagged me. I skipped ahead and checked the bills for the next few months. It happened every month. I skipped ahead to the latest date and it was still there. A standing order.

Ronnie came out of 1019. "Hey, look what I found." He was carrying a medium-sized bowl of matchbooks.

"Cool," I said, then went and grabbed the Fred Segal bag. "Dump them in here."

"I want everything in here, FYI. Can you offer them ten thousand for the lot?"

"Ten thousand dollars?"

"Yes. We'll use some of it to furnish the co-op and then sell the rest. We'll make enough to pay ourselves back, meaning that we'll decorate the co-op for free."

"If it's worth more than ten thousand, why would they accept that offer?"

"Convenience. It sounds like they have a lot of problems. This is one problem solved."

"Do we have ten thousand?"

"Kind of." I knew him well enough to know ‘kind of' meant credit cards.

"How will we kind of pay that off?"

"It's time to refinance the Bennett house."

The Bennett house was our first house. It was small and cute, and we rented it to a couple of lesbians and their little boy. He continued, "That mortgage is at eight point three five. I think I can get a mortgage for seven and a quarter, so it's worth it to refi. The value has gone up so we'll get good terms, and we can pay off the ten grand and a few other things."

"Okay," I said. Basically, I left the money stuff to him. "I doubt they'll take it, but I can offer."

John came back with our lunch. I had respectable carne asada tacos, a lot of chips and a Coke. Part way through, John asked, "So how big a house did this guy have? Two bedrooms? Three?"

"There are two beds," I pointed out.

"But he could have easily done something else with a third bedroom. Or even a fourth."

"I can find out," Ronnie said, and pulled his cellular phone out of his back pocket. "What's the address?"

"410 Faring in Holmby Hills."

He walked away and a moment later I heard him saying, "Hey Margie, can you run a property for me?"

She must have said yes because he gave her the address. I felt like I shouldn't just sit there listening, so I asked John how his burrito was.

"Not bad, especially for some random place."

"There's a place up here everyone goes to. La Casita Grande. It's great."

"I've heard of it."

"I didn't know you spent much time in Silver Lake."

"Oh yeah. There was this guy…"

And then Ronnie was back with us. "Eighteen hundred square feet. Two bedrooms, library, formal dining room, pool, lovely view. Not big for Holmby Hills, obviously. The house sold for over a million. And it's a tear-down."

"I guess it pays to be a lawyer," John said.

"He must have bought it a long time ago," I said. "Did you find that out?"

"No. Our system only goes back ten or twelve years. Otherwise, I'd know the last time the house changed hands and how much they paid."

"I've got some of his financial records."

"Some?"

"Yeah, there's no cancelled checks for some reason. His American Express bills are there. It seems he was paying for the florist at Forest Lawn to put flowers on a grave every month for years."

"Do you think it's Vera's grave? Do you think he's felt guilty for a long time?" Ronnie wanted to know.

"I'm pretty sure the book I found said she's buried there," I said.

"It's not still happening, is it?" John asked.

"I imagine whoever took over his finances put a stop to it."

We put our empty Styrofoam containers back into the bag they'd come in. I set it outside of 1020 with the Fred Segal bag of matchbooks. Honestly, I wasn't sure why I was taking those, other than knowing the kind of places Patrick Gill went to might tell me more about him. There were probably matches for gay bars in there. Was that where he'd met Vera? In a gay bar somewhere?

Back in the lockup, I made another inventory of what was there. The lawbooks, the weirdly deep desk, the leather sofa—if we did buy all this stuff, I'd want that sofa in the living room. But we weren't going to buy this stuff. The Karpinskis would never agree to it. Not for what we could afford.

I squeezed my way by the garage things and found a couple of dressers behind the leather sofa. I was able to pull the drawers open a bit. Each was full of clothing. Men's clothing. I pulled out a pair of slacks. From the fifties or sixties. Not something Patrick would have worn for a very long time. Not something he'd ever wear again. So, why were they here?

The whole thing was stranger and stranger. To put dressers full of clothing into storage suggested this was all done rather quickly. But then, Patrick's financial records seemed to be severely edited. As were the rooms themselves, denuded of whatever personal photos Patrick had around.

Ronnie snuck up behind me and grabbed me around the waist. "What are looking at?" he asked.

"You're supposed to be in your own lockup," I said, turning around and pulling him into my arms.

"You're going to be really happy with me," he said, giving me a quick kiss.

"Why?"

"I called the florist at Forest Lawn, told them I was Patrick Gill's son, the late Patrick Gill, said that he was sending flowers for years and I wanted to know whose grave they were put on. He didn't want to give me a name, I was like, they're both dead, what harm could it do? He still wouldn't tell me. But… he gave me like an address."

"For a grave?"

"Basically. Lot 2077, space 3. We should go after this. It's on the way home."

"The long way home."

"Do you want to make a separate trip?"

He was right. He usually was. I didn't have time to come back to L.A. until at least Monday.

"Sure, we'll go after this."

He kissed me, deep and sexy. Then he stuck his hand down my pants.

"Uh, if you wanted to do that you should have thought of it while John was getting lunch."

"You could have thought of it."

"You're the planner."

"In that case, plan to get busy on Saturday. We have to christen the co-op." He kissed me and then walked away. I had to rearrange myself and think of baseball for a couple of minutes before I could continue.

We poked around for another hour and a half without finding anything—except more things Ronnie wanted. About three, I said "Okay, let's pack up and leave. All we were taking were the matchbooks and the accordion folders, which were going to take several days to fully understand. Not to mention, I had to ask myself whether that was going to matter in the end. I'd probably discovered the most important thing: that Patrick was sending flowers to Vera's grave every month. But what did that prove? Except that he felt guilty, which I already knew.

"Can you guys put the boxes back?" I asked.

"Your shoulder hurts?" Ronnie asked.

"It'll be okay," I said, reflexively. He'd told me a million times I needed to see a doctor about it. I really didn't need to hear it again.

"Oh, I did find something. Probably nothing but…" From just inside 1019, he grabbed a big stack of greeting cards. "These were stuck in books. It's hard to say how old they are, there weren't any envelopes and it's first names only."

"Throw them in the Fred Segal bag. You never know."

Ten minutes later, everything was locked up and we carried our findings down the elevator and out to the Jeep. It's probably just as well I didn't find more, what we did have filled up the tiny space behind the back seat and the spot next to John. My Wrangler was hardly what you'd call spacious.

I suppose I could have gotten on the 101, but that was risky, rush hour would be starting soon. I took Beverly over to Western, cut up to Santa Monica, and took Cahuenga through the pass to Barham. It was the same way I'd come to see Sheila Karpinski at her Burbank stable. Before reaching Warner Brothers Studio, we turned right on to the aptly named Forest Lawn Boulevard.

We found the entrance, then immediately stopped at the information booth. A gentleman in his mid-sixties came out. Thinning hair, slight paunch, he looked straight out of central casting.

"Hi. Can you help us find Lot 2077, space 3?"

"You got a name with that?"

"Vera Korenko," I said.

"One second."

He went back into his booth and pulled out a large notebook. He opened it on a shelf which also housed a telephone and the book he was reading by Tom Clancy. He came back out and said, "Nope."

"I'm sorry?" I said, not knowing what no meant.

"Vera Korenko is in 2077. Space 1."

"Okay. Is there someone in space 3?"

He went back in, examined the page, then came out and said, "Ivan Melchor."

"And space 2?"

"Empty."

Ronnie leaned over me and asked, "Can you tell us who owns the empty plot."

"Nope. I can only give out information on the dead."

"And where are these?" I asked.

"Go down two streets, in the section called Eternal Love. East side."

"Thank you."

I drove on, his directions easy to follow. We got out of the Jeep and soon realized that, while we were in the right area the graves still weren't easy to find. We spread out and wandered around until John called out, "Over here."

It was almost ninety degrees and I'd begun to sweat. The cemetery was on a hill and rather than having markers standing up, there were plaques laid flat into the ground. The grass was well-watered and a brilliant green that went well with the bright blue sky, not to mention the few rabbit-like clouds floating by.

When I reached John, Ronnie was already there with him. They were looking down at Vera Korenko's marker. It looked just like it did in the book, except in color. There was an empty space and then the marker for Ivan Melchor, the man to whom Patrick had sent flowers for years. His marker read:

Ivan Melchor

my Hadrian

1906-1972

"Who's Hadrian?" Ronnie asked.

"Beats me," John said. "Greek God?"

I didn't know either. John wasn't right, I knew that much. But I thought he was close. Whoever Hadrian was, he was ancient. When we got back into the Jeep, I grabbed a little notebook and wrote down Ivan Melchor's dates and the name Hadrian.

When we got home, which took quite a while given that rush hour was in full force by the time we got onto the 710, I suggested we have a pizza delivered.

"Oh God," John said. "I can't have take-out twice in the same day. I'll make spaghetti. It's simple enough."

"I think there's salad fixings." Junior said. He'd run down to greet us the minute we walked in. He looked at Ronnie, assuming he'd make the salad. Knowing what was in the fridge was often Junior's contribution to meals.

John and Ronnie went into the kitchen leaving me with Junior. "What have we here?" he asked of the things we'd brought in with us.

"I told you I'm looking at the Vera Korenko murder. Well, supposedly she was engaged to this lawyer named Patrick Gill. Patrick is saying he killed her. Or at least he feels responsible for her murder. I think they were both gay and were helping each other out."

"So where did you get all this… no offense, junk."

"When they put him into a home, his family sold his house and moved his things to three lockups. We spent the day looking through his stuff."

"And this is all you found?" Peeking into the Fred Segal bag he said, "Matchbooks?"

"Somebody got there before us."

"Ominous."

"Probably not," I said. I had a pretty good idea who removed everything ‘gay' related.

Junior was picking through the matchbooks. "Oh my God, a lot of these are gay bars. Look. Studio One." He was holding a purple matchbook with a silver logo. "I used to go there and dance. It was a fabulous place. The boys, oh, you would die—and then one night, I was suddenly too old. They wanted twelve pieces of identification and a promise to stand in the shadows. One of the worst nights of my life. I remember people were always complaining that they didn't let minorities or women into the disco, but the thing is, they did. Well, not women. But they did let Black and Asian and Hispanic boys in if they were beautiful. Which was also the criteria for White boys, by the way. It's just that no one ever formed a civil rights group for the ugly."

"Sounds like a great place," I said, facetiously.

He must have missed my tone though, because he said, "Oh, it was. It was a dream."

Then something occurred to me. "I wonder how Patrick got it? I mean, he's decades older than you are and if they wouldn't let you in."

"Money, I'm sure. Nothing makes you look younger than a hundred-dollar tip."

He was pawing through the matchbooks again. "Windup, I've heard of that, Roosterfish, Gauntlet…"

"I used to work there."

"No, this is a different one, years before that. On Highland, I think. Gaslight. Playpen. Madness, Inc. The Blue Fox—that was on Sunset somewhere. Before I was old enough to drink. Circus. You know, he can't have gone to all of these places. I mean, they're very different sorts of places."

"Maybe friends brought them to him, knowing he collected."

"That could be." Then he stopped. "Oh my."

"What."

"The Black Cat."

"Okay." Didn't ring a bell for me.

"The police raided it in the sixties, late sixties. That made people angry and they started protesting. It was a big deal. Then New York came along a few years later and stole our thunder. Now everything is Stonewall this and Stonewall that when they really should be Black Cat this and Black Cat that."

Of course, Stonewall Democratic Club—of which I'm sure there were many—had a better ring to it than Black Cat Democratic Club. Strange how things like this can come down to something as simple as a word.

Then Junior asked, "Exactly how are these helping you find Vera Korenko's killer?"

"I'm not really sure I need to find her killer. I just need to figure out why he's saying he killed her."

"It sounds easier to find her killer."

"You mentioned a lesbian who was murdered. Do you remember much about that?"

"It's been ages. I think her body was found under a bush somewhere near the Rose Bowl."

"Pasadena."

"Well, yes, of course. I don't remember much more than that. The police figured out she was lesbian and didn't do much. I think the lesbo groups put up fliers and wrote letters and things, but nothing happened."

"Except, you said people connected it to Vera Korenko?"

"Or at least they tried to. The more they said someone's killing lesbians the less interested the police became."

Ronnie stood in the doorway to the dining room and cleared his throat loudly. "Dinner is served."

Junior and I went into the dining room. The table was set and there was a salad sitting in the center. John brought in a big bowl of pasta and sauce. Ronnie followed with a bottle of red wine and a Crystal Geyser for me.

We filled our glasses, served ourselves, made the appropriate noises about how good everything looked. It really did. Finally, John said, "I have Internet Explorer. I could try to figure out who Hadrian was."

"What do you mean?" Junior asked.

"Patrick Gill had ‘my Hadrian' carved on Ivan Melchor's tombstone," I said.

"Oh my God, that's the most romantic thing I've heard in ages."

"You know who Hadrian was?" Ronnie asked, skeptically.

"Children, you embarrass yourselves. Hadrian and Antinous were two of history's most famous gay lovers. Hadrian was emperor of Rome when he met Antinous, the most beautiful young man in the entire world. They fell desperately in love and Hadrian brought his lover on his military campaigns. Then, in Egypt, Antinous drowned in the Nile. Hadrian was bereft. He commissioned statues of Antinous wherever he went. His grief was as big as the world."

"Putting that on Ivan's grave means he and Patrick were lovers, doesn't it?"

"It also means Ivan was the older of the two. And very likely the top," Junior said with a smirk.

"How do you know that?" Ronnie asked, with even more skepticism.

"Because in ancient Rome, gay sex was everywhere but it was only okay if you were a top. You could fuck your slave or your neighbor's teenage son, but they couldn't fuck you."

That was just bit too close to home, given that Ronnie was much younger than I was and… Well, I decided to change the subject. "Junior's been to a lot of the bars that Patrick saved matchbooks for."

"Yes, back in the seventies. Speaking of the seventies, I remember this joke we used to tell. Why do faggots have mustaches?"

We looked at each other, none of us had mustaches. John had had a Van Dyke for a while the year before, but it had been gone for a long time.

Junior picked up on our lack of facial hair saying, "Okay, so a lot of guys had mustaches in the seventies. Come on, why do faggots have mustaches?" He paused dramatically then crowed, "To hide the stretch marks."

We didn't laugh or even chuckle. Junior frowned and said, "Somewhere along the way people lost their sense of humor."