Each day we return to our elegant quarters on Vallejo Street spent and defeated. We follow up leads that come in by the hundreds based on Herb Caen’s column. We received three letters from men who claimed to be Trevor Poe, as well as five ransom notes from people claiming to be holding him hostage. I speak to kooks, weirdos, five private detectives, dozens of Trevor’s former lovers, his masseuse, his barber, his neighborhood grocer, and three psychics who promise to discover his whereabouts.
At the first week’s end, we gather on Saturday evening for a serious conference. We have been efficient, yet we all agree that we are no closer to finding Trevor than we were before leaving our jobs and homes in Charleston. We vow not to give up yet, but to dedicate ourselves to one more week. We go to bed exhausted and praying for a break.
The next day, I am not expecting what I find in room 487 at the end of still another lightless hallway in the Devonshire Hotel. I notice that none of those hotels give much room for hope to hide in, and the Devonshire is worse than most. I know something is wrong as soon as I knock on the door of room 487.
I am greeted by a silence that unnerves me, with no stirring or rustling about or shuffling of unsteady, slippered feet. I try the doorknob and it comes off in my hand, but the door swings open on rusted hinges. Inside a young boy is sleeping, his blond curls and full lips giving him the look of a figurine trapped in an unnatural stillness. He cannot be more than twenty years old, but his attractiveness is offset by the smell of excrement that seeps through his silk pajamas and the cheap sheets that cover him. I place his food on a dresser, then touch my hand to his forehead. When my hand feels the coldness, I know he has been dead for hours. The peaceful expression on his face is an act of mercy that death can sometimes bestow on someone in unbearable pain. His clothes hang neatly in a filthy, mouse-befouled closet, and I find his wallet in the back pocket of his best suit. His driver’s license contains a picture of him smiling with some coyness and impish humor. His name is Aaron Satterfield, and he once lived in an apartment on Sacramento Street.
Inside his wallet, I discover several photographs of interest. There is a series of photos of Aaron and four of his friends dressed as cowboys at a Halloween party in the Castro. The same group of five mug for a camera in one of those lamentable curtained booths you find in cheap bus stations. On the back of the photo, Aaron has written these words: “All dead, except me.”
In the top drawer of his bedside table, I find two letters, one from his mother and one from his father. Because I am present at their son’s deathbed and they are not, I feel I have a right to read those letters. A part of me has to know the story of why this gorgeous child died alone. It is the Satterfield family of Stuart, Nebraska, who should be standing over the body of this blond, wasted boy, and not me. As that thought preys on me, I wonder how long the tears have been running down my face, and if they are tears of pity or rage or a molten combination of both at the same time.
The father’s letter could not have been pithier or more to the point: “Faggot. If you are dying as you claim, I declare it God’s will. That you have been something foul and unclean in the eyes of God is no surprise. It is Bible written and Bible promised. I would not send you a penny I made from working on my farm. May God have mercy on your soul. I have none. Your father, Olin Satterfield.”
After I finish the father’s letter, I sit there trembling and tearful while I pray to God and ask him not to allow me ever to think like the people of God if it requires me to be anything like Olin Satterfield. No matter what your Scriptures say, Lord, I will not do it. I open his mother’s letter and read, “Dearest Aaron, this hundred dollars is the last of the nest egg I have saved since the day I married your father. I don’t know what he would do if he found out I’d been sending you money all this time. I wish I could be beside you right now, taking care of you, cleaning up for you, making sure you were eating right, holding you and telling you stories you used to love as a child. I kiss you now, and it carries all my love and all the hurt I feel for you. By the power of prayer, I believe that Jesus will cure you. He died on the cross for people like you and me and especially for people like your father. Your father loves you as much as I do, but his stubbornness won’t let him feel it. At night, he wakes up crying and it has nothing to do with the wheat or the cows. I love you as much as Jesus does, Mom.”
The death of this pretty half-child proves to me that I have come to one hotel too many in this beleagured city. If I wished to spend my life working miracles among the dead and the dying I could have gone to medical school, but I was born to write frivolous, witty columns about the pulse rate of Charleston. My time among young men dying of starvation because of some ruthless virus loose in their bloodstream is starting to wear me out. I want out of San Francisco, and the sooner the better. At this moment, I don’t give a damn whether we find Trevor Poe or not. I want to sleep in my own bed and work in my own garden and walk down streets where every house is familiar to me. Mostly, I want to run away from the presence of this dead Nebraska boy, and yet I sit beside him on his bed, staring at his lovely, inanimate face. Then I smell his shit again and spring into an action that surprises me.
I remove his sheets and pajama bottoms and clean him up with a towel I find in his sink. Gathering the towel and the sheets and the pajama bottoms together, I open up a window and hurl the fetid pile into the alley below. I find some Paco Rabanne aftershave lotion in his shaving kit, and after I shave him, I liberally sprinkle him from his cheeks to his thighs with the sweet-smelling cologne. Carefully, I comb his hair and style it the way I found it in his wallet photograph. I cover him with a blanket he had kicked off the bed, and I feel a certain satisfaction when I have completed my assignment. To me, Aaron Satterfield is ready for anything—a baptism, a laying on of hands, or a meeting with the godhead. When I finish I burst into tears, and of course, that is when Molly Rutledge finds me.
“We’ve been looking all over for you,” she says, then realizes the situation. She goes over and touches Aaron’s face with remarkable tenderness and says, “Oh, my God. What a beautiful boy.”
I hand her the two letters and she reads them without emotion or commentary. “He looks as though he died while dreaming something nice, Leo,” she says afterward.
“Yeah, I had the same sickly sentimental thought when I first saw him too.”
“I guess what I mean is that I’m glad his suffering is over,” Molly says, choosing not to react to my acidulous tone. My weeping embarrasses me and I wish I could’ve finished it before she entered the room.
“We’ll have to call the police,” Molly says. “They’ll take him to the morgue. We can let his parents know tonight.”
“Why weren’t they here?” I ask. “Or why didn’t they bring him home?”
“Shame. Pure human shame on his father’s part. Fear of the father on the mother’s. I bet the father tormented this poor kid from the time he was born. Come on, Leo; we’ll do your last floor together. They’re waiting for us. If we were all as slow as you, these boys in the Tenderloin would starve to death.” Molly takes my list and adds, “Just three more rooms then we’re through for the day.”
She touches Aaron’s face again with her soft, manicured hand. “What’ve we gotten ourselves into, Leo? This time out here will change us forever. It’ll mark us in ways we don’t know.”
“Was it hard downstairs in this dump?”
“It was awful. We’re not going to find any nice death by AIDS. It’s like all of them, every one of them, have been nailed to their beds.”
“We’re not going to find Trevor, are we?” I say. “We’re just putting on a show to make ourselves feel better. Make Sheba feel better.”
Molly wipes the tears from my face with a handkerchief. “Remember who we are, Leo. We’re folks who get things done. We’re going to find Trevor and take him home with us. We might lose him in the end, but he’s going to be surrounded by people who love his ass when he dies. We aren’t gonna let him die like Aaro
n Satterfield. Get the picture?”
“Yeah, girl. I get the picture.”
And Molly licks the last tears that roll down my cheek.
I try to regain control of the situation, that terrible moment of time. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to. It tasted good. Like an oyster. Or a pearl from an oyster. Salty like the ocean off Sullivan’s Island. I liked it that you cleaned this boy up,” she said.
“How did you know I cleaned him up?”
“Ike and Betty were standing near the alley when you threw all the stuff out the window, then Betty ran up to tell me you needed some help. Ike gathered up all the stuff and put it in a Dumpster. Said it smelled like hell.”
“Why didn’t Betty come find me?”
“She thought I could handle it,” Molly says. “Plus, Betty’s calling the cops. An ambulance is on the way. Let’s finish and get out of here.”
“Good idea. Sorry I took so long.”
“You’re forgiven, Toad,” she says, smiling. “Just this once.”
That evening I pick up the phone in the small office off the kitchen and dial for information in Stuart, Nebraska, where I ask for the number of Olin Satterfield. With the compassionate telepathy that made her famous among her friends, Molly Rutledge enters the room behind me carrying tumblers with two fingers of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.
The phone rings twice and the father answers.
“Mr. Satterfield,” I say. “This is Leo King calling from San Francisco. I’m calling with news of your son.”
“There must be some mistake,” he says. “I have no son.”
“Aaron Satterfield is not your son?”
“Do you speak English? I just told you that I don’t have a son.”
“Do you have a wife named Clea Satterfield?” I ask, studying the name on the second letter I hold in my hand.
“I may and I may not,” he replies.
With some effort I control my temper, and say, “If Clea Satterfield has a son, sir, I would like to talk to her.”
“Clea Satterfield is my wife.” The man’s voice is glacial. “And I assure you that neither of us has a son.”
A brief but furious argument breaks out on the plains of Nebraska, in a state where I have never set foot, and it is muffled yet hard-fought. Then I hear the voice of a woman, clearly agitated and at the end of whatever short rope she is tethered to in the small acreage of her life.
“This is Clea Satterfield,” she says. “I’m Aaron’s mother.”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some terrible news for you, ma’am,” I say. “Aaron died today in a hotel in San Francisco.”
I would have continued, but I hear a scream of purest sorrow, and for several seconds, her voice is something primal and ancient and inhuman. “There must be some mistake,” she says between terrible sobs. “Aaron’s always been a healthy boy.”
“Aaron died of AIDS, Mrs. Satterfield,” I say. “He was probably too embarrassed to tell anyone.”
“You mean cancer,” she corrects me. “Aaron died of cancer, you say?”
“They say it was AIDS. I’m no doctor, but he was diagnosed with AIDS.”
“Cancer is such a killer,” she says. “I don’t know a family in our com munity it hasn’t touched. It’s such a scourge. Did Aaron say anything before he died? I didn’t get your name.”
“Leo King,” I answer. “Yes, he said to tell his parents that he loved both of you very much. Both of you. His mama and his daddy.”
“Such a sweet boy,” she says. “Always thinking of others. Where is he now? His remains, I mean.”
“In the city morgue. Here’s the name of a funeral home that you can call and they’ll prepare the body to ship home for burial.”
I give her the name and number of a funeral home that specializes in the preparation of corpses who died of AIDS.
“Wasn’t my boy beautiful?” Mrs. Satterfield asks.
“One of the best-looking men I ever saw,” I say.
“Even the cancer couldn’t touch that.”
I hear something strange in the background and ask, “What’s that?”
“That’s my husband, Olin. Aaron’s father. He’s crying, so I have to go. You sure Aaron told you he loved me and his father very much, Mr. King?”
“Those were his last words,” I lie. “Good-bye, Mrs. Satterfield. I’m Roman Catholic and I’ll have a Mass said in memory of your son.”
“We’re Pentecostal. Please, no Masses for us,” she says. “Let us do the praying. Let us do the burying. We’ll do it the old way, and the right way. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Mrs. Satterfield.” Again, my blood is up. “That should’ve been you and your husband with Aaron when he died. Not me. That’s the old way. That’s the right way.”
She hangs up on me and I put my face in my hands. “I had no right to say that to that poor woman,” I tell Molly.
“The hell you didn’t,” Molly says. “She’s lucky it wasn’t me who called her. I’d’ve told her exactly what I thought of her and her god-awful husband.”
“He was pretty torn up.”
“It’s easy to be torn up in Nebraska,” Molly says. “It’s harder in room 487 in the Hotel Devonshire. Let’s go feed the troops.”
· · ·
Just past midnight, my bedroom door opens. I reach up to turn on the lamp by my bed. Molly Rutledge enters, trailing her beauty like something that can damage a man or change his life forever. She is carrying two glasses, and I smell the Grand Marnier as she sets them on the table. She removes her robe to reveal a silken, diaphanous gown that makes me praise God for the shape of women. I do not like that Molly is putting us in such an awkward situation, but I don’t hate her for it, either. Even so, our friendship holds a richness and a power and a completeness that I do not wish to risk because her misguided husband has developed a taste for long-legged Brazilians half his age.
While Molly’s prettiness is classic, imperturbable, natural, I sport a face that has no business coming anywhere in the vicinity of hers. She is one of the great beauties of her Charleston generation, and I am just a foot soldier in society who knows his place in the order of things.
Molly looks at me, and takes a sip of her drink. “Well?”
“I can think of a thousand reasons not to do this, Molly.”
“That all you got?”
“Your sister-in-law is upstairs sleeping with my brother-in-law. It seems tacky to have a romp in the basement under those circumstances.”
“Seems natural to me,” she says. “What does a nice girl have to do to get laid around here?”
“We’re both married. I’m the godfather of your daughter. I was a groomsman in your wedding.”
“Tell me that you don’t love me, and I’ll leave.”
“I’m not in love with you, Molly. I’ve always had a thing for Trevor Poe.”
“I knew you’d make one of your stupid jokes. I was expecting it. Now I’m going to lie down beside you.”
“I’m afraid for you to,” I say.
“Why? I’m up on my rabies shots.”
“I’m afraid the world won’t ever be the same.”
“I don’t want the world to be the same.” She walks over to the bed, and turns out the light.
On this night I rediscover why all the great religions condemn the sweet, enchanted crime of lust. When I am inside Molly’s body, when the cells of my flesh light up in ecstasy with the fiery truth of her flesh, I feel the creation of a whole new world as we move together, purr together, moan together. My tongue becomes her tongue, our lips burn in congruence, our breasts lock into each other’s heartbeats. When I come in a burst of fire and flood, she roars in behind me. Words pour out of me that I had thought for twenty years but had never believed I would whisper in the ears of this woman, and she accepts them with forbidden words of her own. With a cry, I fall off her. Then, she kisses me a final time. In darkness she gathers garments that are feathery, and in nakedness sh
e leaves me. What began in mere sin ended in sacrament, and as I lie there alone, I know that she was right: my world will never be the same.
CHAPTER 16 The Patel Connection
When we finish our work for Open Hand on Tuesday, a police car is waiting for us, parked in front of the Vallejo Street house. Ike and Betty go over to flash their badges and speak with a detective. Rather than the break we are hoping for, it turns out to be a surprise: the police want to interrogate me about a murder for which I am a prime suspect. That’s when I see Anna Cole walking toward me.
The homicide detective is named Thomas Stearns McGraw, the son of two poetry-loving parents. His father teaches American literature at Berkeley and his mother’s father is a third cousin twice removed of the author of The Waste Land. Since it is a new experience for me to be a suspect in a murder case, I do not learn this fascinating autobiographical detail at our first encounter, but later, since Tom McGraw is a gifted conversationalist and a man with a curious nature.
I introduce Anna Cole to everybody and explain who she is. Anna is obviously deeply shaken by the recent turn of events, and her hands tremble visibly. She turns to me in a sudden white fury and says, “I knew I shouldn’t have opened the door for you.”
“Let’s go inside to discuss this, Detective McGraw,” Ike says. Tom McGraw’s unexpected arrival breaks up the rhythm of habit that has sustained us in our search. Everyone wants to be present when the detective questions me. But Ike assumes control and sends the others to the phone bank in the dining room, ordering them to remember the hundreds of leads that need to be followed up.
Sheba kisses me on the cheek. “If Leo King committed murder, Detective, I’ll jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and let you film my suicide. You’ll have worldwide rights to my death.”