The Man Who Couldn't Miss Page 15

  “Oh, hello,” she said in a voice that was decidedly less than warm. “I’ve been in the village picking up a few things.”

  “A prescription for Dini?” I asked as Lulu and I got out of the Jag.

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she responded sharply.

  “You’re absolutely right. It’s not.”

  I followed her down a brick path to a bluestone terrace that faced the Sound. It was a rare gem of a summer day. No milky haze. No humidity. Just a deep blue sky with puffy white clouds and a bright golden sun. The water was sparkling and beautiful. I counted four, five, six sailboats out there picking up the fresh breeze that last night’s storm had left behind.

  Merilee was seated with Dini at a teak table shaded by an umbrella. There was a pitcher of iced tea and glasses on the table. The twins were out on the lawn rather listlessly tossing a Frisbee back and forth—until they spotted my short-legged partner.

  “Come play with us, Lulu!” Cheyenne called to her.

  “Come on, Lulu!” Durango chimed in.

  Lulu stayed put next to me, grunting sourly. She hates playing Frisbee. Hates it.

  “Lovely spot, isn’t it?” Merilee said with forced good cheer as I joined them at the table.

  “It is. I’ve never been out here.”

  “That’s the whole point of these private colonies. They don’t want to mix with us common folk.” Merilee glanced over at Dini before she turned back to me, lowering her voice. “Lieutenant Tedone stopped by with some rather devastating news from the medical examiner.”

  “How are you doing, Dini?” I asked, studying her across the table. She looked as if she were in a trance, positively goggle-eyed by shock and grief.

  “Did I just hear my mother come home?” she asked in a timid voice.

  “You did. She went in the house.”

  “Come play with us, Lulu!” Cheyenne called out once again. “Please!”

  I looked down at Lulu. Lulu looked up at me. I suggested she take one for the team and pretend to have fun chasing the stupid Frisbee back and forth. She dutifully went ahead and did just that, barking playfully as she ran back and forth from one twin to the other, making them giggle.

  “The girls seem to be holding up well,” I observed as Glenda came outside and joined us at the table.

  “It hasn’t sunk in yet,” Glenda said. “That their daddy is dead, I mean. Greg was away on location an awful lot and they’ve gotten accustomed to his long absences. They’re still convinced that he’ll be coming home one of these days, despite what we’ve told them.” She let out a regretful sigh. “They’ll face up to it soon enough, but for now they’re just children being children.”

  Dini continued to sit there in silence.

  “How are you doing, Dini?” I asked again.

  “Do you mean how do I feel about Greg being dead or how do I feel about finding out that he infected me with the AIDS virus?” Dini gazed at me across the table, her pale blue eyes puddling with tears. “I feel like a victim. I also feel like the world’s biggest idiot.”

  “You’ve been through a lot, dear,” Glenda said to her. “And you still have a slight fever, you know.”

  “When did you find out that you’re HIV-positive?” I asked her.

  “Doctor Orr dropped the news on me yesterday afternoon. I phoned him from my room at the inn while I was trying to rest up after our dress rehearsal. I immediately called my own doctor in New York, who’s making an appointment for me to see the top AIDS specialist in the city as soon as we get back. My doctor swore to me that being HIV-positive is no longer a death sentence. They’re having excellent results with AZT along with a cocktail of other drugs, vitamins, minerals and a special diet. He promised me that I can still lead a long, productive life.”

  “He’s right,” Merilee said, taking Dini’s small hand.

  “Did you know that he was cheating on me?” Dini asked me point-blank.

  I shook my head. “Hadn’t a clue. And, for what it’s worth, I’m not convinced that Greg knew.”

  Dini looked at me with desperate hope in her eyes. “You mean . . . you think it’s possible he wasn’t aware that he had it?”

  “I do. Greg loved you. He loved your girls. I refuse to believe he’d knowingly give you the virus.”

  Dini considered that for a moment. “Well, he didn’t get it from me if that’s where you’re going with this. I never cheated on him. Not once.”

  “He wasn’t thinking that, Dini,” Merilee assured her. “Were you, Hoagy?”

  “Of course not,” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. It was entirely possible that Dini was seeing another man. It was clear during rehearsals that she and Greg hadn’t been getting along. There was tension in their marriage.

  Dini reached for her iced tea and took a sip, her hand trembling slightly. “I’ve pulled out of the Julia Roberts movie. They’re talking to Sissy Spacek.”

  “She’s a wonderful actress,” Merilee said. “But she’s not you.”

  Dini’s eyes welled up as she gulped back tears. “Thank you, but I-I just don’t know if I have it in me to keep going. Or if I even want to.”

  “You must,” Merilee insisted. “Your girls need you. I won’t insult your intelligence by trying to put a smiley face on this. Your life as you knew it has been nuked. And it’ll only be a matter of a few more hours before the press gets hold of this and the whole world finds out—which will make it a hundred times more awful. But you will get through this. You’re a fighter, Dini. You’ve always been a fighter. And we’ll be by your side every step of the way, I swear.”

  The girls were still throwing the Frisbee. Lulu chased it a couple of more times before she decided she’d had enough and flopped down under the table at my feet, panting. I patted her and told her she was a good girl. She assured me she expected an anchovy reward.

  The phone rang inside the house.

  “A housekeeper came with the place,” Dini said. “She’ll answer it.”

  A moment later a tall, gaunt lady who had to be in her eighties came out of the house and said, “The fella at the gate said there’s a man hee-yah in a station wagon.” She had one of those salty Rhode Island accents that you still heard occasionally in southeastern Connecticut among working-class people of a certain age, which is to say old. “Says he works for your family. Has himself two golden retrievers with him. You know we can’t have those dogs hee-yah in the house. The missus is allergic.”

  Dini’s eyes widened. “My god, what is Eugene doing here?”

  “Wants to help out, I imagine,” Glenda said with an absence of enthusiasm.

  “But what are we going to do with Steve and Eydie?” Dini wondered.

  “Would it be okay if the dogs slept in the garage?” I asked the housekeeper.

  “Don’t see why not,” she responded. “As long as they don’t howl.”

  “They won’t,” Dini assured her. “They’ll be good and quiet. Please tell the guard to let him in.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  A black Volvo station wagon rolled in soon after that and parked next to the Jag. Eugene got out and raised the tailgate. Steve and Eydie leaped out of the back of the car and came bounding across the lawn toward the twins, barking excitedly. The twins greeted them with tremendous glee as Lulu crouched under the table at my feet, eyeing them with silent disdain. She can be a bit of a snob when it comes to big, dumb slobberers.

  Greg’s twenty-six-year-old personal assistant, Eugene Inagaki, strode toward us, his face a mask of grief. Eugene, a third-generation Japanese-American from Fresno, was no taller than five feet eight but extremely well put together and nimble on his feet, as one would expect from the man who’d been the number one ranked intercollegiate squash player in America his junior and senior years at Yale. He had on a Yale T-shirt, baggy shorts and Topsiders. Wore his black hair a bit on the shaggy side and was unshaven.

  “Don’t hate me, Dini,” he pleaded as he crossed the terrace towar
d her, blinking back tears. “I had to come. I just had to.”

  “Of course you did,” she said soothingly. “I’m glad you came, Eugene.” Dini got up from the table and gave him a warm hug. “Besides, the girls have been missing Steve and Eydie. But the dogs will have to sleep out in the garage.”

  “I’ll put down the backseat of the Volvo and sleep with them,” he said.

  “So will we!” Durango exclaimed as Steve and Eydie licked her face.

  “Absotootly!” Cheyenne chimed in.

  “You girls are not sleeping in the garage. And neither are you, Eugene. We’ll find you a bedroom. There must be at least eleven of them.”

  “That’s real kind of you,” he said. “I figured I could find a motel or something, but I wanted to be here for you to help run interference with the press. I mean, you’re all alone out here.”

  “She’s not all alone,” Glenda said to him curtly. “She has me.”

  “Of course she does,” Eugene said, backpedaling quickly. Me, I sensed no great love between the two of them. “I just wanted to make myself available is all I meant.” He heaved a sigh of grief, his muscular chest rising and falling. “I can’t believe Greg’s gone. He was such a good man.”

  “Yes, he was,” Dini said softly.

  Eugene got around to exchanging somber greetings with Merilee and me before he turned back to Dini and said, “Tell me, what can I do first?”

  “You can get those dogs some exercise,” Glenda ordered him. “They’re barking their fool heads off.”

  “Sure thing. They’ve been cooped up in the car for hours.” He clapped his hands and started toward the beach, the retrievers dashing along after him.

  “I could use some exercise myself.” I got up from the table, glancing down at Lulu. She wasn’t budging. She’d played Frisbee. She wanted nothing more to do with further physical activity.

  “Can we come, too?” Cheyenne pleaded.

  “It’s time for your lunch,” Glenda replied. “Come inside and eat.”

  “But we can eat when we come back,” Durango protested.

  “Do what Grandma says,” Dini told them.

  “Okay, Mommy,” they responded in glum unison, starting toward the house with their grandmother.

  I caught up with Eugene on the beach as the dogs romped in and out of the surf. I found a discarded tennis ball on the sand and tossed it high and far into the water. The dogs dove in eagerly and swam to get it. I watched them, waiting patiently for the stabbing pain in my old javelin shoulder to subside.

  I still maintain Grandfather’s membership in the Racquet and Tennis Club, and had invited Eugene to play squash there one afternoon last fall. Or rather I should say he’d played squash and I’d stood nailed to the floor watching him like a sweat-soaked statue. After he graduated from Yale he attended the film school at NYU for a semester before he changed direction and got an MBA from Columbia. He wanted to be a producer someday, and I had no doubt that he would be one. He was highly competitive and whip smart. Greg had met Eugene a year ago when he’d been Greg’s gofer on a movie Greg had shot in Seattle for Rob Reiner with Michelle Pfeiffer. Eugene had impressed him so much that he’d offered him a job as his personal assistant. Eugene had jumped at the chance. If you lack social contacts in the movie business, there are two paths to becoming a producer—either you claw your way out of a studio mail room or you become a star’s personal assistant.

  “How are you holding up, Eugene?”

  “Not real well.” Eugene gazed out at the sailboats on the water, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Do they have any idea who killed him?”

  “Not yet. But they will.”

  Steve swam back to us with the ball in his mouth, dropped it proudly at my feet and shook himself, treating both Eugene and me to bracing saltwater showers. Eydie was still out there swimming around, hoping for another chance. I threw the ball in her general direction. Steve dove in and swam after it, but Eydie beat him to it this time.

  “Glenda wasn’t real thrilled to see me,” Eugene said. “Did you notice?”

  “She wasn’t happy to see me either. I don’t think it’s personal.”

  “No, it totally is. She thinks I’m a parasite. She doesn’t understand that it takes someone with my skill set to watch out for creative people and protect your interests. Because, let’s face it, when it comes to the fine print you’re all a bunch of helpless children.” He glanced over at me. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Eydie swam back with the ball in her mouth and went running down the beach with it. Steve chased after her. In and out of the water they went, bounding joyfully. I watched them, filled with envy. Dogs live happier lives than we do. Somebody ought to write a book about that someday. Not me, but somebody.

  “Tell me, Eugene, how long had it been going on?”

  “How long had what been going on?”

  “You and Greg.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

  Eugene’s eyes widened in fright. “He told you?”

  “Inadvertently. And I didn’t let on that I knew.”

  “I don’t understand. What did he . . . ?”

  “Greg said to me that the two of us should go out for beers when he got back to New York from shooting the Eastwood picture.”

  Eugene shook his head at me, bewildered. “So . . . ?”

  “So using the English language is how I make my living, Eugene. I’m making no judgments here but there isn’t a straight guy in America who refers to beer in the plural. Straight guys drink beer together. Gay guys go out for beers.”

  “This is a real thing that you’re saying to me. You’re serious?”

  “Do I look as if I’m kidding?”

  “No,” he conceded as we walked along the water’s edge, the dogs romping way ahead of us. “No, you don’t.”

  “So let’s try a do-over. How long had it been going on?”

  Eugene lowered his eyes, swallowing. “Three months.”

  “Not that it’s any of my business but had Greg always been bisexual?”

  “He said no. He swore to me that I was his first male lover.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I did. He was very nervous our-our first time. But he told me that he’d loved me from the moment he first set eyes on me. And I knew that I loved him, too. Don’t ask me why. There’s no explaining such things.” He glanced at me curiously. “You were aware that I’m gay, weren’t you?”

  “Never gave it much thought, to tell you the truth. I don’t consider someone else’s sexuality to be any of my business—unless it does become my business.”

  “I came out when I was sixteen. Got the crap beat out of me a couple of times in high school for my trouble. Being a little Asian fag boy isn’t exactly the road to popularity in Fresno. But I am who I am. And I’m not ashamed.”

  “Nor should you be. Did Dini know about the two of you?”

  “Not a chance. She has the twins and her work and her bitch of a mom.”

  “Do you think she knew?”

  “Glenda? Wouldn’t shock me. She has a very suspicious nature.”

  “Eugene, I know how upset you are right now, but I have some more bad news for you. Or at least I believe it will come as news.”

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice turning heavy with dread.

  “Greg’s autopsy revealed that he was HIV-positive. This information hasn’t been made public yet. Nobody knows. But I thought you should know. Dini hasn’t been feeling well lately. Some bug that’s been going around, they thought. Anyway, she got a blood test and it turns out she’s HIV-positive, too. We’re assuming she got it from having unprotected sex with Greg, since she swears she hasn’t slept with anyone else.” I looked over at him. “Which brings us to the question of how Greg contracted it.”

  “Are you . . . ?” Eugene slowed to a halt, stunned, and wavered there for
a moment before he sank slowly to his knees in the wet sand. “You’re telling me I have AIDS?”

  “I’m telling you that if Greg wasn’t seeing anyone else . . .”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  “Then you should get a blood test as soon as you get back to New York.”

  Eugene remained there on his knees in disbelief. “So Dini got the virus from Greg,” he said slowly.

  “Unless she gave it to Greg. Is there another man in her life?”

  “There’s no one, Hoagy. I’m around her all of the time. She’s as faithful as they come.” Eugene gazed up at me. “I feel perfectly healthy. But if what you say is true then I must have the virus, too. It doesn’t add up any other way.”

  “Eugene, I don’t mean to get personal . . .”

  “Personal? Dude, we passed that signpost ten miles back.”

  “Have you been seeing anyone else?”

  “No way. Not since I broke it off with Marc four months before I met Greg, and we’d been in a monogamous relationship for almost two years.”

  “What happened between you and Marc?”

  “It just wasn’t working anymore. Marc’s an angry person, especially when he drinks. I didn’t want that kind of anger in my life, so I ended it. He lives in Miami now. South Beach.”

  “Any chance Marc was seeing someone else while you two were still together?”

  “He swore to me that there wasn’t but he must have lied to me, the reckless, drunken bastard. That’s the only way it . . .” Eugene fell into brittle silence. “Marc’s the last person in the world who I want to talk to right now, but I ought to call him and tell him. It would be the responsible thing to do, right?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I never, ever did the bar scene, Hoagy. I’m a moral, religious person. I’m not some sleazeball home-wrecker. Greg and I genuinely loved each other.” He gazed up at me beseechingly, still kneeling there in the sand. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. But where was this going, Eugene?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We live in a puritanical society. An actor can’t be one of the top three leading men in Hollywood if he’s openly gay.”