The House That Jack Built

1. This is the farmer that sowed the corn that kept the cock that crowed in the morn…

Matthew wondered what he was doing here.

I’m an attorney, he thought. Why am I lying here in the rain?

“Listen,” Warren whispered.

Matthew listened. He could hear the sound of angry waves pounding in against the beach. He could hear the rattling of palm fronds on the sharp wind. He could hear the rustle of sea oats along the shore.

Nothing else.

“Didn’t you hear something?” Warren whispered.

“No,” Matthew whispered.

They kept watching the house.

They were lying behind a huge sea grape on the side of the house facing the water. A cold drizzle pattered onto the broad leaves of the plant. The sand under them was cold and wet. The wind kept blowing in fiercely off the water. This was the third day of February. It had begun raining on the morning of the murder. It had been raining steadily for the past five days.

Words.

You listened to words and they didn’t mean anything until the pictures began to form. In the beginning, Matthew hadn’t conjured any images, he had heard only the string of words coming from Ralph Parrish’s mouth. Parrish had come down to Florida to see his brother. Drove down from Indiana a week ago; Wander Indiana, his license plate had read. Came down here for his brother’s fortieth birthday. Parrish’s brother was gay. Parrish knew that. But he hadn’t been prepared for his brother’s party, here in the house on the beach. Men wearing dresses. Men dancing with each other. Kissing other men. Parrish had gone up to his room at ten minutes to midnight. At a few minutes before seven in the morning, Parrish heard his brother screaming. He ran downstairs.

Fifty-two or — three years old, Matthew thought when first he met the man. Hair graying at the temples, a somewhat bulbous nose, a thin-lipped mouth. Broad shoulders that made the denim jailhouse clothing appear far too tight. An Indiana farmer who should have felt right at home here in Calusa, where so many Midwesterners now made their homes. But he’d been arrested for killing his younger brother.

Words.

Jonathan — the brother — greeting his Friday-night party guests. Despite the chilly weather, he is wearing pleated linen slacks and a designer silk shirt unbuttoned to the waist. Ornate gold crucifix on a thick gold chain nesting in the wiry hair on his chest. A gift from a former lover. A memento of Jonathan’s “Italian Sojourn,” as he calls it when he is in his bitch mode. Parrish uses exactly those words: his brother’s bitch mode. Matthew suddenly wonders if he, too, is gay.

Words.

But some images are beginning to form.

The crucifix is a little bauble from a Chicago dentist fresh out of the closet and summering in Venice. Bruce Something, would you believe it? Jonathan all sleek and slender and blond and pale and blue-eyed, with Bruce’s long-ago crucifix on his chest and the bells of St. Benedict down the road tolling the hour as the guests arrive, bong, bong, bong and so on, seven o’clock sharp. In Calusa, Florida, everyone always shows up on time, no chic half-hour, forty-five-minute tardiness here, oh, no, mustn’t miss any of the festivities. Middle West morality. Middle West manners transported due south to the Gulf of Mexico.

“Jonathan, this is heavenly!”

This from a splendidly bejeweled old queen wearing a mink stole over a Pierre Cardin knock-off. One of Jonathan’s friends. Standing there on the deck of the old Whisper Key beach house, the air redolent of Poison and Shalimar and Tea Rose and God only knew what other mingled fragrances, half the men in drag, the others looking blissfully Blass, all of them ooohing and ahhhing as the sun sets over the Gulf, the last sunset anyone will see for the next five days because it will begin raining at a quarter to five in the morning.

Jonathan says, “My brother’s a gentleman farmer, you know.”

A biker look-alike in black leather — the only rough trade in evidence — says, “And do gentlemen farmers plow deep?”

And the perfumed queen in the mink stole says, “Naughty, naughty,” and taps him with a Japanese fan.

Pictures forming.

Scents.

Sounds.

Jonathan puts on the new CD someone brought as a birthday gift, and someone else remarks on how cold and crisp and scintillatingly sharp are the sounds blasting from the speakers. A couple begins slow-dancing close, and before anyone can breathe the word AIDS, everyone else is dancing, and it is just like old times, ah, those dear, dead times, hands on buns, fingers widespread at the napes of necks, sock it to me, darling. Ralph Parrish is watching a road-show production of The Boys in the Band, and it turns his stomach. He tells this to his brother in no uncertain terms. The two argue violently, and Parrish stomps upstairs to his room on the second floor of the house.

Downstairs, he can hear laughter, they are laughing at him.

And music again.

He drifts off into a troubled sleep. He dreams of acres and acres of sunwashed corn, his cash crop back home, but behind each withered stalk there are fornicating fags.

The faintest hint of light on the drawn window shade.

The sound of rain pelting the deck below.

Voices raised in argument.

And his brother screaming.

And now words erupt into fullblown images, Parrish throwing back the sodden sheets, his bare feet touching a wooden floor sticky with salt, his brother still screaming, the scream a blood-red splash on the pale gray dawn, and then words again, “I don’t have them! I don’t know where they are!” — his brother — and another scream.

And silence.

Parrish races downstairs.

A door slams.

Through the window, he sees someone running northward up the beach.

Running through the rain.

Wearing black.

On the floor, his brother is wearing red.

The pale linen slacks are stained red, the open silk blouse is stained red, his brother is red with the blood that seeps from a half-dozen cuts on his hands, blood that seeps in agonizing slow motion from the wound sucking the blade of the knife plunged into his chest.

Jonathan looks up at him.

His eyes are brimming with terror and pain.

Parrish’s first instinct is to pull the knife from his brother’s chest.

He tells this to Matthew later.

“I thought I could relieve his suffering if I pulled out the knife.”

His words to Matthew.

He pulls out the knife.

And blood spurts up onto his hands and his face.

“So much blood,” he later tells Matthew.

Words.

Remembered words in the falling rain.

Images of blood.

The Indiana farmer still maintained that the man in black was either the murderer or a witness to the murder. If the murderer, he would almost certainly come back to the house to get what he was looking for the first time around. The Calusa cops had finished their work here early this afternoon. Now Matthew and Warren lay on their bellies in the rain, waiting for the possible appearance of the stranger in black, who’d run off into a gray, wet dawn on the morning of January thirtieth.

“Don’t you hear it?” Warren whispered.

“No,” Matthew whispered back. “What?”

“There’s definitely somebody in that house,” Warren said.

And got to his feet.

Thirty-four years old, black and tall and slender, a former St. Louis cop, now working as a private eye here in Calusa. A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson came out of a holster clipped to his belt. He stepped around the sea grape. Matthew wished he was home in bed. But he followed Warren up the path to the steps rising to the deck, and climbed the steps behind Warren, onto the deck, the deck slippery with rainslick, dark clouds scudding across the sky, no moon at all, what a lark. A Sheriffs Department crime scene sign was still tacked to the French doors at the back of the house.

Warren listened at the doors.

And nodded affirmation.

Someone was in there.

Matthew could hear the sounds, too.

Someone rattling around in there.

Searching?

For what?

The doors were locked. It took Warren twelve seconds to loid the Mickey Mouse lock with an American Express credit card.

No one in the living room. Dim shapes taking form in the darkness. A sofa. Several rattan easy chairs. A bookcase. A coal scuttle. A desk against one wall. A blacker rectangle, a doorframe. Beyond the doorframe a sound again. Warren put his hand on Matthew’s arm, cautioning him. They waited.

A kitchen beyond the door.

Silence now.

An open window. A curtain flapping on the wet sea wind.

Another sound.

Their eyes adjusted to the darkness.

A refrigerator. A sink. A counter. A table. On one of the chairs—

Eyes.

A mask.

“Freeze!” Warren shouted, and crouched, and thrust the gun forward in a two-handed policeman’s grip.

“It’s…” Matthew started, too late.

Warren had already blown away the raccoon.

In Florida, raccoons look like hyenas. They are not soft and cuddly and cute the way they are in northern climes. They do not need as much fur down in the Sun Belt. You never feel like hugging them or petting them. They are not adorable. They do not waddle out of the canals and waterways, they slink. Their sparse wet fur clings to their skinny bodies, and they move with a swift, hyenalike gait as they forage for food. They can open garbage cans as deftly and as effortlessly as a burglar or a cop opening a locked door. If they get inside your house, they will wreak havoc there. Better a hurricane than a raccoon.

Warren Chambers was happy he’d shot the raccoon.

“They carry rabies,” he said.

Frank Summerville was not happy that Matthew and Warren had broken into the Parrish house and killed the raccoon.

“You’re not a private eye,” he said.

“I know,” Matthew said. “I’m an attorney. Warren’s the private eye.”

“Be that as it may,” Frank said, “you had no right breaking into the Parrish house.”

They were in Frank’s office. Summerville & Hope on Heron Street. The street name conjured a big Florida bird preening in Florida sunshine — but it was still raining. Frank’s description of Hell was rain in Florida. A displaced New Yorker, forty years old, five feet nine and a half inches tall, with a round face, dark hair, and brown eyes. Constantly talking about the Big Apple. He called Calusa the Little Orange. He called Miami the Big Tamale, a slur on its Hispanic population. He hated Florida. Matthew kept wondering why he didn’t simply move back to New York. And hoping he wouldn’t. He was a good friend and a good partner.

And something was troubling him today.

Something more than the interminable rain and the dead raccoon.

He knew his partner well.

Something in those eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“What is it? You break into a house ten minutes after the police are done there…”

“Parrish is sure the killer’s coming back.”

“That’s exactly what I would say if I was the killer and I wanted my attorney to think I wasn’t the killer.”

“Frank… he’s innocent.”

“So he says.”

“I wouldn’t have taken the case if I thought…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know your code.”

Silence.

Matthew looked into those eyes again.

“You want to tell me about it, Frank?”

“Your code? Sure. You think…”

“No, not my code.”

“You think the world is full of either good guys or bad guys. The good guys don’t commit murder.”

“That’s my code, huh?”

“On the evidence,” Frank said, and nodded curtly.

Another silence.

“Tell me,” Matthew said.

“Tell you what?”

“Whatever it is.”

“Come on, it’s nothing.”

“What is it?”

“Come on, you don’t want to hear this shit.”

“I do.”

Frank looked at him. He sighed heavily. He turned away, facing the window. Rain riddled the panes.

“Leona,” he said.

Leona Summerville, his wife. Two or three years younger than Frank. An inch shorter than he was. Wore her black hair cut in a Dutch bob these days. Narrow, pretty face and high cheekbones. Tip-tilted nose. Generous mouth and a dazzling smile. Wasp waist, flaring hips, long legs, and exuberant breasts. On the League to Protect Florida Wildlife, went to meetings once a week. Which was maybe why Frank was upset about the raccoon.

“What about her?” Matthew asked.

Frank turned from the window. Behind him, rainsnakes slithered.

He did not say anything for a very long time. Matthew waited.

“I think she’s playing around,” Frank said.

Words.

No pictures yet.

Well, yes, the immediate picture of Leona fiercely naked in a faceless stranger’s embrace. An erotic video shot. Snapped off instantly and willfully, gone in an immediate electronic flurry; Matthew did not want to see it.

But the words kept coming.

Leona’s inadequately explained absences and lame excuses over the past few months. I’m going to a movie with Sally. I have to get my nails done, the manicurist moonlights at home at night. The girls are going out for dinner Monday night, we thought Marina Lou’s. I have to shop for my sister’s anniversary present, the stores are open late tonight. I’ll be gone all day Saturday, I’m tagging plants for the church sale. And the phone calls. Hangups whenever Frank picked up. Hello? And a hangup. Or, more recently, men — they sounded like different men each time — asking for Betty or Jean or Alice or Fran and then apologizing for having dialed the wrong number. The underwear hidden in the back of her dresser drawer. Crotchless panties he’d never seen her wear. Garter belts and seamed stockings. Bras with nipple-holes. The new haircut. A new perfume. A different brand of cigarettes. And last night…

“This gets personal,” Frank said.

“Let me hear it.”

“She was with the wildlife people… that’s what she told me. Went to the meeting after dinner, got home at a little before midnight. The meetings usually break up around eleven-thirty.”

He hesitated.

“Matthew, I don’t want to believe this.”

“Neither do I.”

He seemed on the edge of tears.

“She… you know, she… she wears a diaphragm. When we… before we make love, she… she goes into the bathroom and… and puts it on. Inserts it, whatever.”

He turned to face the window again. It was still raining.

“I was in bed when she got home. I watched her undress. And I… I wanted to make love, you know, so when she got into bed beside me, I started… you know… kissing her and… and touching her… and…”

Pictures again.

Both of them naked in bed. Frank outrageously erect, Leona accepting his wild caresses. His hands wander her breasts, her belly, and at last search her out below, fingers exploring. She moves to get out of bed, “I don’t have anything on,” she says quickly, and tries to roll away from him, but she is too late, his fingers are already inside her.

“She was wearing the diaphragm,” Frank said.

Silence except for the rain.

“She was wearing it when she left the house, Matthew.”

The steady drilling of the rain on the leaves of the palm outside his window.

“She… she said she was hoping we’d make love, planning on it. But that… that isn’t Leona. She never… I mean… it’s always been a spontaneous thing with her.”

Matthew nodded.

“Did you call any of these people?” he asked. “The wildlife people? To see if there really was a meeting last…?”

“There was a meeting, I know that. She isn’t stupid.”

“Was she at the meeting?”

“There are fifty, sixty people in the group, no one keeps track of who’s there, or who leaves early, or…”

“Except you. Clocking her comings and goings, checking out her perfume and her cigarettes and her underwear…”

“Yes. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Has it occurred to you that she may be telling the truth?”

“One of the good guys, huh?”

“I’ve always thought so, Frank.”

“I know she was lying about the diaphragm.”

“You don’t know that for a fact. Maybe she did plan on…”

“Then why’d she say, ‘I don’t have anything on’? When she was already wearing the damn thing!”

“Maybe you misunderstood her. Maybe…”

“No.”

“Maybe she meant…”

“No.”

“Why don’t you ask her what she meant, Frank? Talk to her. For Christ sake, she’s your wife!”

“Is she?”

Their eyes met.

“How busy is Warren?” Frank asked.

“Very. Why?”

“I want to put him on her.”

“I don’t think you should do that, Frank.”

“I have to know. One way or the other, I have to know.”

Matthew sighed.

“Could… could you talk to him?” Frank said.

“If you really want me to.”

“Please.”

“I’ll have to tell him, you realize…”

“Yes, who she is. Yes. Of course.”

Matthew sighed again.

“I’ll put him to work,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I hope you’re wrong about this.”

“I hope so, too,” Frank said.

First things first, Warren thought. If the lady’s running around, she’ll still be doing it tomorrow or a week from tomorrow. No hurry when it came to cheaters. Important thing now was to talk to the man in black.

Warren was sitting at a table nursing his fourth beer. He wondered if you could catch AIDS in a joint like this. The state of Florida ranked third in gay population after New York and California, but so far only seventy-five AIDS or AIDS-related cases had been reported in Calusa. On Warren’s block, that was seventy-five too many. Especially if you could get it from a beer mug.

The bartender had told him he would point out Ishtar Kabul the moment he walked in. Ishtar Kabul. The family name undoubtedly appropriated from the city in Afghanistan, the surname from the motion picture. Someone had told Warren that Ishtar in Arabic meant Howard the Duck.

Ever since he’d begun working this case — and except for last night when he’d shot the raccoon — Warren had been tracking down the witnesses the State Attorney intended to call. Twelve good men and true. Just like the jury who would hear them testify that Ralph Parrish and his brother had argued violently on the night before the murder.

He had located most of them at the addresses the State Attorney had supplied, and then had started looking for the rest of them in the city’s gay bars. There were only three such bars in all Calusa: Scandal’s, above the Greek restaurant in Michael’s Mews; Popularity, across from the airport on Route 41; and The Lobster Pot, here on the corner of Tenth and Citrus. The Lobster Pot was the oldest and sleaziest gay bar in town. The gay community called it The Shit Pot. It was Christopher Summers who’d told him that.

He had finally found Summers late this afternoon, in the public park across from Marina Lou’s, one of Calusa’s known homosexual cruising areas. Summers did not look at all like the drag queen Parrish had described. No mink stole or pearls or Japanese fan. Sitting on a bench in the rain, big blue-and-white WUSF public-radio umbrella over his head, wearing a tan tropical suit, looked like a respectable banker, which for all Warren knew he maybe was. Warren had taken a seat on the bench. In thirty seconds flat. Summers asked him if he wouldn’t care to run over to his place for a drink. Warren told him No, thanks, he was hoping instead to talk about the party at Jonathan Parrish’s house last Friday night.

Summers said, “Oh.”

So they’d talked.

Sat in the rain and talked. Both of them huddled like lovers under the big blue-and-white umbrella. Pitter-patter went the rain.

“Yes,” Summers said. “There was a man dressed in basic black at Jonathan’s party — black leather as I recall — a man named Ishtar Kabul.”

Warren asked if Kabul was himself of the black persuasion, a name like that.

Summers said, “Oh, no, he’s as white as you or I,” and then realized he was speaking only for himself, Kemosabe. But, yes, Kabul was in fact white, and in his twenties, and of course gay. Before the night of the party. Summers had run into him only once before, Kabul coming out of The Lobster Pot, Summers idly strolling past. “Are you sure,” he asked, “that you wouldn’t like to come up to my place for a drink? I can make a little fire, this dreadful rain. You certainly don’t intend to go to that place, do you?” Which was when he mentioned that the gays in Calusa called it The Shit Pot, because of its somewhat less than elegant appearance and reputation.

Somewhat less than elegant was definitely what you might call The Lobster Pot. Obligatory fishnets hanging on all the walls, dead red lobsters trying to claw their way free of them. Tables fashioned from hatch covers, the brass so tarnished you could almost taste it. Lighting out of Casablanca, dim and smoky. A long, scarred bar lined entirely with men. A jukebox blaring rock.

Ishtar Kabul came in at a quarter to eleven, his arrival noted by a discreet nod from the bartender.

Still wearing black, the guy had nerve, Warren had to say that for him. If indeed he was the cat who’d juked Jonathan Parrish and then run off into the rain, you’d think he’d have switched to shocking pink by now.

But no, black it was.

Furling a big black umbrella, shaking water all over the floor. Black hair and black jeans and a black V-necked sweater, sleeves shoved up to the elbows. Black boots. Black leather wrist band on his right wrist, black-strapped Seiko digital watch on his left. Big silver-and-turquoise necklace hanging on his chest. Little silver-and-turquoise earring in his left ear. Blue eyes to match. Flashing. Checking out the meat rack.

Warren raised his hand.

“Ishtar!” he called. “Here!”

Kabul turned, squinted into the near-darkness.

“Here!” Warren called again, and waggled the fingers on his right hand.

Kabul came over to the table.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“Now you do,” Warren said, and flashed a big watermelon-eating grin. “Sit down, Ish. We got some talking to do.”

“Nobody calls me Ish,” Kabul said, and started to walk away.

“What did Jonathan Parrish call you?” Warren said to his back.

Kabul stopped dead in his tracks. Black jeans tight across the buns he was advertising. Slowly he turned, like a man in a vaudeville routine.

“Who?” he said.

“Jonathan Parrish,” Warren said. “Sit down.”

Kabul hesitated.

“Sit, darling, I won’t bite you,” Warren said, and flashed the Sambo grin again.

Kabul looked him over, blue eyes intense, wondering.

And finally sat.

He looped the handle of the black umbrella over the back of his chair.

He looked across the table at Warren.

“So?” he said.

“So where’ve you been all my life?” Warren said. “Or at least since last Saturday?”

“What are you?” Kabul asked. “Fuzz?”

“Semi,” Warren said.

“Meaning?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“But you’re kidding! Are there really such things?”

“In person,” Warren said.

“Will wonders never?” Kabul said, and shook his head.

“So, Ish,” Warren said, “you favor black, huh?”

“Occasionally,” Kabul said. “Your place or mine?”

“Naughty, naughty,” Warren said, repeating the words Summers had said to Kabul on the night of the party, courtesy of Ralph Parrish, now languishing in jail for the murder of his brother. The words did not seem to ring a bell. Kabul’s eyes were wandering the room now, searching for a likely partner. He seemed bored with what was going down at the table here.

“You were wearing black the night of the party, weren’t you?” Warren said.

“What party?” Kabul asked. Still bored with all this shit.

“Here it is,” Warren said. “Straight. You were wearing black on the night before the murder. Parrish’s brother saw someone in black running away from the house on the morning of the murder. I want to know where you were at seven a.m. that morning, while Parrish was getting himself stabbed.”

“Home in bed.”

“Alone?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Who with?”

“A lady named Christie Hewes.”

“A lady?”

“A lady, yes.”

“You’re a switch-hitter, Ish?”

“I’d make it with an alligator if it didn’t have such sharp teeth.”

“Do the police know about this lady?”

“The police know about her. They’ve talked to her, they know I was with her. Anyway, what is this? The police already have their killer.”

“We don’t think so, Ish.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me,” Warren said. “You’re sure about this lady, huh?”

“I’m sure.” Kabul smiled. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Warren Chambers.”

“Should I call you Warr?”

“No.”

“Then don’t call me Ish.”

“What’s your square handle, Ish?”

“You’re impossible,” Kabul said, and rolled his eyes.

“Herman? Archibald? Rodney? If you picked Ishtar, it must’ve been a lulu.”

“What’s your square handle?” Kabul said. “Leroy?”

“That’s getting racist, right?” Warren said.

“No, Amos would be racist.”

He was beginning to enjoy all this. He didn’t think this was serious here. He figured the cops had already been to see him, so why should he tell anything to a two-bit private eye? It was time for a little dog-and-pony act, time to lay a little bullshit on the man.

“Let me splain something, Sapphire,” Warren said. “We have a client who is facing the electric chair, dig? Now let’s suppose we ask the State Attorney to run a little lineup, and let’s say our man identifies you as the cat he saw running off up the beach…”

“Why would he do that? I was home in bed. That would be perjury.”

“Why, gosh, I suppose it would. But maybe he’ll think perjury’s better than the electric chair, huh? Are you getting the drift, Ish?”

“Don’t call me Ish.”

“Ishtar, excuse me. Is it beginning to penetrate, Ishtar?”

“I love the words you use,” Kabul said. “Penetrate.”

“Could you please cut the tutti-frutti?” Warren said. “What do you want me to do, Ishtar? Open this can of worms for the State Attorney, or keep it all in the family?” Still bullshitting. The S.A. already had his case, and he wasn’t about to run a lineup. “Decide, okay?”

“I was in bed with a lady named Christie Hewes.”

“That’s your story, huh?”

“The police checked with her, they…”

“I’ll be checking with her, too,” Warren said.

“So check.”

“I will. And I’m a lot better than the police. You’d better be damn sure you were with her. Otherwise, when our man identifies you…”

“You’re not frightening me.”

“Good, I don’t mean to frighten you. I’ll be running along now,” Warren said, and rose, and shoved back his chair. “Nice talking to you,” he said, “I’ll give Christie your regards.”

“Wait a minute,” Kabul said. “Sit down.”

Warren kept standing.

“She’s scared enough as it is,” Kabul said. “Leave her alone, okay?”

“Scared of what?”

“Shit, man, this is a murder case!”

“Really? Gee.”

“Your guy gives the cops a bunch of shit about a man in black…”

“You,” Warren said.

“No, damn it, not me! Somebody he made up. To save his ass.”

“You’re beginning to catch on,” Warren said. “The minute he makes positive identification…”

“Leave Christie alone, okay?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want the police visiting her again. She already signed a statement.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You go there and scare her…”

“Me?”

“You get her to change her story…”

“Oh? Was she lying, Ishtar?”

“I’m not saying she was lying. But if she changes her story…”

“That means she was lying.”

“And if then your guy says I’m the one he saw on the beach…”

“Which is just what he will say, I promise you.”

“Then we’re both in trouble.”

“You more than the lady. Scare her how, Ishtar?”

“Into saying I wasn’t really with her.”

“But you were, weren’t you? That’s what you told the police. That’s what Christie swore to.”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“I’m not worried.”

“Good. Then I’ll just go talk to her.”

“No. Wait.”

Warren waited.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Kabul said.

“Who don’t you want to get in trouble?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Were you with someone else?”

Silence.

“Not Christie, huh?”

The silence lengthened.

“And not an alligator either, I’ll bet.”

“Look…”

“Who was it, Ishtar?”

“He’s married,” Kabul said. “The man I was with.”

“Ah,” Warren said. “What’s his name?”

“You’ll only get him in trouble.”

“No, I’ll only talk to him. Privately. Discreetly.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Or I’ll dog your tracks for the next month until I catch you and him in bed together, and then the shit’ll really hit the fan. Pictures, Ishtar. hi living color. Speak.”

Kabul was silent for a very long time.

“Listen,” he said at last. “I really love this guy. I don’t want to get him in trouble, really.”

“Who? Tell me his name.”

Another silence. Someone across the room laughed shrilly. Kabul looked toward the bar. Over his shoulder, almost in a whisper, as though reluctant to let the name escape his lips, he said, “Charles Henderson.”

“Thank you. The address, please.”

“He lives on Sabal Key.”

Still watching the action at the bar.

“Where on Sabal?”

“Sabal Towers.”

“Any address?”

“I don’t know the address. It’s the big condo there. Sabal Towers.”

“Apartment number?”

“I’ve never been to his apartment.”

He turned, looked up at Warren.

“Listen… please be careful,” he said. “Charles is very shy, and very vulnerable…”

“And very married, I know,” Warren said.

“Yes,” Kabul said.

“He’s got nothing to worry about,” Warren said. “And neither do you. If you were really with him that morning.”

“I was.”

“I hope so,” Warren said.

He really didn’t hope so. He hoped Kabul was lying in his teeth. That way it would be easy.

But he knew it never was.