The Bottle Ghosts Read online

  “Uh, I don’t know much about plants, babe, but isn’t it supposed to have a couple more leaves than that?”

  Jonathan laughed. “Ficuses do that! They don’t like to be moved, and when they’re moved they lose all their leaves—not just ‘phwump’, like that, but in a week or so. This one was one my boss sold to a lady and he told her once she put it somewhere not to move it, but she kept switching it from place to place, and it lost all its leaves and she brought it back. He said I could have it. Isn’t that great? I’ll take really good care of it and the leaves will all come back in a little while and it will be beautiful. You’ll see.”

  “If you say so. But shouldn’t we put these groceries away while we wait?”

  *

  We decided because of the hour that rather than fixing dinner, we’d order out for pizza. Jonathan fixed my Manhattan while I called Momma Rosa’s for a large sausage, pepperoni, onion, and green olives. In deference to Jonathan’s aversion to “raw fish” I skipped the anchovies.

  God, you’re noble! my mind said, but I recognized the sarcasm.

  While we waited, Jonathan got out his book bag and textbook, sitting as usual cross-legged on the floor with the book open in front of him. I got out Ted Kemper’s number, carried the phone over to the couch, sat down, and dialed.

  “Hello?”

  “Ted Kemper?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Dick Hardesty, Mr. Kemper. I’m a private investigator and…”

  “Are you calling about Benicio?”

  “Well, yes, as a matter of…”

  “Well I don’t know who the hell you are,” he said, his anger building as he spoke, “but I think it’s pretty damned cheap of you to try to drum up business this way. Don’t you think if I could have afforded a private detective I’d have hired one on my own? How dare you intrude…”

  He’d completely thrown me off guard with that unexpected outburst, but as soon as I got my bearings again, I interrupted him.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Kemper. I’m sorry, but you have completely the wrong idea. I’m not trying to get you to hire me. I’m working for another client on a matter which might possibly have some remote connection with Mr. Martinez’s disappearance, but I don’t and won’t know until I’ve had a chance to talk with you. Would you be willing to talk with me for a few minutes?”

  There was a long pause. “Now, you mean?”

  “No, I don’t want to bother you any further tonight, and I prefer to talk in person. Perhaps we might meet somewhere, or you could come to my office.”

  I’d normally suggest that I could come by his home, but I could tell by the suspicion in his voice that that would not be a good idea—I’m sure he’d think I had some ulterior motive.

  “You have an office?” He sounded slightly surprised.

  Uh, yeah, I thought. “Yes, I have an office,” I said patiently. Under normal circumstances the guy’s attitude would really be pissing me off about then, but I realized that I was talking to someone whose lover had vanished. He had a right to be suspicious of anybody and anything.

  “Let me get a pencil.” I heard the phone being set down, followed by another long silence. Finally, it was picked back up.

  “Where is it?”

  I told him. Another silence, then: “I work not too far from there. I can come over after work tomorrow. I get off at four o’clock, so I can be there by four-fifteen.”

  “That’ll be fine. I really appreciate it.”

  When he spoke, his voice had lost its edge. “Do you think whatever you’re looking for could help find Benicio? He’s been gone seven weeks now. Seven weeks! I…well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yes, we’ll talk about it then. Thanks again. Tomorrow at four-fifteen, then.”

  Just as I hung up the phone, the doorbell rang, and Jonathan got up quickly from the floor and went to buzz whoever it was—undoubtedly the pizza man—in. I wondered idly if Jeff Barber, a really hot teenager who’d been flirting with me for the past couple years, was still doing deliveries as well as working at the Laundromat his folks owned.

  I started to reach for my wallet, but Jonathan already had his out and fanned me down. “I’ve got it.”

  He opened the door and, sure enough, there stood Jeff. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but he was certainly looking good. He was definitely making the transition from lanky teenager to fully-developed (in more ways than one) man. I don’t think he’d ever seen Jonathan, but he gave him a more-than-appreciative look-over, then saw me and grinned.

  “Hi, Dick,” he said brightly. “How’s it hangin’?”

  Jonathan looked a little startled.

  “Hi, Jeff. I’d like you to meet Jonathan. Jonathan, this is Jeff.”

  There was an awkward shuffling of pizza/wallet from one hand to the other and they shook hands. I could tell Jeff held the handshake a lot longer than necessary, grinning from ear to ear.

  “You and Dick an item?” he asked the still-off-guard Jonathan.

  “Yeah,” Jonathan said, and Jeff gave me a reproving look.

  “Well, don’t forget your promise.”

  “Promise?” Jonathan asked, releasing Jeff’s hand and opening his wallet.

  Still grinning, Jeff said: “Yeah, Dick’s gonna fuck me as soon as I turn twenty-one.”

  Poor Jonathan was totally rattled by this time, and he looked from Jeff to me and back again. Jeff, apparently realizing he might have crossed the line, backtracked a bit.

  “Just kidding,” he said, but his eyes were on me when he said it.

  Jonathan exchanged a bill for the pizza, and told Jeff to keep the change.

  “Thanks,” Jeff said, pocketing the bill. “It was nice to meet you, Jonathan.” He extended his hand for another longer-than-usual handshake.

  “Oh, and Dick,” he said, with a totally wicked grin, “if you feel like trying something other than pizza next time, I make a great chicken sandwich.”

  Luckily, Jonathan didn’t react to that one. I returned the grin, shaking my head in mock disgust. “Get out of here.”

  He turned and left, leaving Jonathan standing at the door holding the pizza. He turned to me with a raised eyebrow: “Chicken sandwich, huh?”

  *

  Ted Kemper arrived at my office door at, according to my watch, exactly 4:15. I’ve always admired people who can arrive somewhere exactly on time. I’ve never done it in my life.

  I opened the door to find a very tall, thin, nice looking guy around forty, wearing a tie-less white shirt and black pants with a crease that looked sharp enough to cut paper. I wondered if he had been standing up all day, since the pants didn’t have a wrinkle in them.

  We shook hands and I invited him to come in and have a seat. I offered him some coffee, but he declined.

  “I apologize if I was a little short with you yesterday,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “It’s been a rough seven weeks.”

  “I understand.” I leaned back in my own chair.

  “What is it you wanted to know?”

  I got right to the point.

  “I understand you and Mr. Martinez belonged to a therapy group through Qualicare.”

  He nodded. “A good group. I really thought it was helping.”

  “How long had you been going to the group?”

  He thought a moment. “Somewhere around eight or nine months, I’d guess…are you saying you think Benicio’s disappearance had something to do with the group?”

  I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. Could you give me a little background on your relationship and on the group? How long you and Mr. Martinez had been together, how you joined the group, what you know about the other members, and a little about how the group works?”

  “Sure.” He glanced over at the coffee pot and seeing it still about half full, said: “Maybe I will have that cup of coffee.”

  I immediately got up to get us both a cup as he talked. “Benicio and I met about three and a half years ago in—surprise—a bar
. We hit it off, dated for a couple of months, then moved in together. I didn’t even really realize he was an alcoholic until we were living together and I saw how much liquor we were going through. We’d come home at night and Benicio would have only one drink. Well, technically, that is. He’d start out with a tumbler three-quarters full of gin and then keep ‘freshening’ it every ten minutes or so all night long until he passed out.”

  I brought him his coffee and offered him a couple packets of sugar and instant creamer, which he waved off, still talking. I got the impression he needed to talk about it as much as I needed to hear it. I returned to my chair and sat down.

  “I started pointing it out to him, and that led of course to arguing. He vehemently denied he had a problem—again, ‘surprise’—and things just kept getting worse. It got to the point that we almost stopped having sex because he was either in the process of getting drunk or beyond the point of being able to respond. Finally, I put my foot down, and practically forced him to start going to A.A.. And then, when my company switched our insurance to Qualicare and I heard about this group, we joined.”

  He paused to take a sip from his coffee.

  “So who all is in the group, and how does it work?”

  He leaned forward to set the Styrofoam cup on the edge of my desk, then sat back.

  “It’s all pretty casual. Couples come and go. When we started there were six couples—I think that’s the maximum—we were down to four for a while, and then the week before…before Benicio disappeared…a new couple came in so that brought it back to five. I don’t know how many they have now.”

  “Who was in the group while you were there? And did you tell anyone at Qualicare that Mr. Martinez had disappeared?”

  He reached forward for his cup and took another sip. “I last saw Benicio the Monday after our last meeting. We’d had another argument over the weekend; he had gotten into a fender-bender and the cop smelled liquor on his breath, and he got another D.U.I.—his second. I mentioned it at the meeting, and that really pissed Benicio off. But he started drinking again on the weekend, and we had a big fight on Monday morning before I left on a short business trip. When I got home Tuesday, he was gone. I never saw him again. He’d never just gone off like that. Never.”

  He shook his head and drained his coffee in several long gulps. I was going to ask if he wanted more, but didn’t want to break the flow of his conversation.

  “By Wednesday I was frantic. I’d called his work first thing Wednesday morning and found out he’d been there Monday and seemed fine, but he hadn’t shown up Tuesday. I called everyone we knew, everyone I could think of. I called the hospitals, I called the morgue, I called the police. They told me to wait until the next day…Thursday, the third day he’d been gone…to come in to file a missing person report. Then on Thursday night, on a whim, I went down to Qualicare just to see if he might be waiting for me there, for the meeting. I waited outside watching for him until I knew the meeting had started, then went in and talked to the receptionist to see if he’d seen or heard from Benicio. He hadn’t. I asked him to tell Brian Oaks—he’s the therapist who leads the group—what had happened, and then I left.”

  “I’m curious as to why you didn’t go in to the meeting as long as you were there.”

  He gave a semi-shrug. “One of the unwritten rules. It’s a couples group, and if only one half of a couple shows up it defeats the whole purpose. Sort of like the sound of one hand clapping. But I thought…”

  He looked at me almost pleadingly and shook his head again. “And nothing since. Nothing. Seven weeks of nothing! I must have called the police ten times to see if they had found anything at all, and always get the same ‘we’re working on it’ spiel. I’ve gone to all the bars, even though Benicio never was all that much of a bar drinker. Nothing. And like I told you last night, if I could have afforded to hire a private investigator, I would have. But…”

  He lowered his head and stared at a spot somewhere between his knees and my desk, like a cat intently watching something only it can see.

  “Well, I promise that if I find out anything at all that might be of help to you, I’ll let you know. No charge.”

  He looked up and gave me a weak smile. “I appreciate that. It’s just so damned frustrating, not to know where he is, why he went away, why he hasn’t called…”

  “You were going to tell me the names of the other members of the group,” I suggested, sensing his slide into depression and hoping to distract him.

  “Right.” He straightened up slightly. “Brian—that’s Brian Oaks, the group leader, prefers we don’t know too much about each other outside of the group setting. There’s some sort of confidentiality thing we had to agree to when we joined. We never use last names. But there was…let’s see…two guys—Greg and Fred, I think their names were, dropped out right after we joined; Carl and Jay, Sam and Pete—they left about three months later; Keith and Victor, Andy and John, and Paul and Frank, and just before Benicio vanished…John and Jerry.”

  Something clicked. “You mentioned a Fred…and a Sam?”

  “Yeah, Fred and Greg, Sam and Pete. As I said, they dropped out.”

  “Fred DeCarlo? Sam Roedel?” I heard myself asking, remembering Gresham having mentioned those names as two of the missing.

  Kemper shrugged. “No idea. Like I said, I never knew last names. I remember Fred talking about being Italian, though. Said he’d started drinking Chianti when he was nine.”

  My mind had kicked into overdrive, and I had to really force myself to stay focused on Kemper and what he was saying, and on the moment.

  “And what about the therapist—Brian Oaks? Do you know anything about him?”

  Kemper moved his head very slowly back and forth as he thought, his lips semi-pursed.

  “Nnnno, not really. He’s a really nice guy, apparently from a family of alcoholics, though I don’t think he is/was an alcoholic himself. He’s got a private practice, I know, but again, whether any members of the group might be seeing him outside the group I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t talk much about himself, of course.”

  I was aware that it was about time to wrap things up, but suddenly remembering something Bradshaw had said, I had one more question. “How do the members of the group get along? Any notable conflicts or personality clashes?”

  Kemper leaned forward in his chair, apparently also sensing that we’d covered about as much ground as we were going to. “Well… Everybody gets along pretty well. Sometimes some of the couples…well, sometimes things sort of boil to the surface in the course of the session. Carl, especially, has some real problems dealing with Jay’s drinking, and he can get downright nasty. And sometimes he directs his frustrations at other members. But Brian keeps things from getting out of hand. And after all, that’s what the whole group is about: to share experiences and to help us learn what we can from one another. And since every couple is made up of an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic, it’s pretty interesting for everybody.”

  I glanced at my watch. Definitely time.

  “Well, I really appreciate your coming in, Mr. Kemper, and again I promise that if I come across anything at all that might be helpful to you in finding Mr. Martinez, I’ll call.”

  We both got up at the same time and reached across the desk to shake hands. “Thank you, Mr. Hardesty. All I care about is finding out where Benicio is and having him come home. Soon.”

  I don’t know why these things happen, or where they come from, but I suddenly felt an all too familiar rush of deep sadness. Something inside me was telling me very definitely that Benicio Martinez would not be coming home again. Not soon. Not ever.

  Chapter 4

  All the way home I couldn’t get my mind off the fact that I’d done it again: I’d stumbled on a case that I knew was going to take me a lot farther than I wanted to go. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that Jerry Shea, Benicio Martinez, and I’d bet my bottom dollar Fred DeCarlo, had not just wandered off, and that none of the
m would be coming back. I determined to call Marty Gresham in the morning to ask him to help me confirm what my gut told me I already knew: that the fourth missing man from the past six months…Sam…Roedel…had also been a member of the Qualicare group. Only the fact that Qualicare had not been around more than three years kept me from suspecting that the other two missing gay men in Gresham’s five-year review might also have belonged.

  But why the hell hadn’t anyone made the connection before? How could the group’s leader, Brian Oaks, not have known that four of the people he counseled had vanished? To say that something very odd was going on at Qualicare was the 800-pound gorilla of understatements and I realized, however reluctantly, that I was going to have to find out what that something was. How was quite another matter.

  *

  I arrived home to my customary (how soon we become spoiled) hug, grin, and Manhattan, though for some reason tonight it all felt particularly good, and just looking at Jonathan gave me an oddly indescribable feeling of warmth. He, of course, was oblivious to whatever was going on inside me and sat down beside me on the couch, close enough that I could put my arm around him. He looked at me and replaced his grin with a softer smile.

  “Bad day?”

  “So-so.”

  “Well, I have some good news, anyway,” he said.

  “Your ficus getting a seventh leaf?”

  He laughed and slapped my leg. “No, Chris just called again from New York; he thought you’d be home. Everything’s set and they’ll be here for positive Thursday.”

  Well, that was nice, but we’d already pretty much established that. I suspected there might be something else.

  “And?”

  He took a deep drink of his Coke, belched dramatically, made an exaggerated wide swipe of his mouth with the back of his hand and said “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Classy, huh?”

  I grinned at him. “Classy…and?”

  His eyes wandered around the room like a bird looking for a way out…a definite sign there was an “and.” Finally his eyes came back to mine.