Chapter Four

Walking into the Formosa Café is like stepping into Old Hollywood: red bricks, black and white awning, and a neon sign. It looks like the kind of place where Raymond Chandler would have knocked back a few highballs while he was writing for the studios; maybe he did. The Formosa has been around since 1939 and still bills itself “where the stars dine.”

Over two hundred and fifty of those stars are plastered on the walls in black and white stills, including Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, and Elvis. Even New Hollywood dines at the Formosa -- or at least stops in for drinks. The mai tais are legendary, and Paul Kane was enjoying one when I found my way through the gloom to his table.

“You made it,” he said in relief, as though there had been some doubt about my showing up. He beckoned to the waitress, indicating a mai tai for me. I quickly signaled no thanks as I slid into the red leather booth.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid I’ll poison your drink,” Kane said, pulling a rueful face.

“What would be your motive?”

He laughed delightedly. “You really are a mystery writer!”

“Tell it to the critics.” I smiled at the waitress and ordered an orange juice. “So what makes you think the police suspect you more than anyone else?”

He sighed and reshaped his mobile features into another of those charming expressions. “It’s been tactfully pointed out to me that I mixed the fatal cocktail.”

I considered him objectively -- tried to, anyway: he was distractingly good-looking, and this was the perfect setting for his old-fashioned handsomeness. I seriously doubted that Jake considered him a real suspect. Jake’s sense of self-preservation would have ensured he steered clear of Paul Kane’s sphere if he suspected Kane was really involved.

Wow. Maybe Jake was right. I was getting cynical in my old age. After all, even if Jake knew Kane was innocent, eager beaver Detective Alonzo would -- should at least -- consider the possibility that Kane was guilty. And, unless Jake had changed a lot in two years, he would allow the investigation to proceed unimpeded.

“Let’s order,” Kane said.

I had the chopped cucumber salad which offered carrots, cilantro, daikon radishes, bean sprouts, and Napa cabbage with crisp won ton strips. Kane had the rack of lamb. While we ate he chatted amusingly, cattily, about various celebrities -- including a couple seated within earshot of us.

He was on his third mai tai -- and I was seriously considering giving in and having one too -- when he said, “I assume Jake mentioned that we know each other…socially.”

I managed not to snort at the delicate pause before that “socially” comment. Because nothing said social occasion like butt plugs and paddles. I’d heard a few rumors that Kane, who was openly bisexual, was into the BDSM scene. It wasn’t a world I knew much about, but it was Jake’s playground -- or had been before his marriage.

“I gathered,” I said. I also gathered that he must know something of my own former relationship with Jake, although -- Jake being Jake -- no way would he know a lot beyond the fact that there had been a relationship.

Kane smiled as though amused by everything I wasn’t saying. “He happened to mention that in addition to writing mysteries, you’re something of an amateur sleuth -- and not a bad one.”

I choked on my orange juice -- which triggered one of my coughing spells. When I had regained my composure, and the worried-looking waiters had retreated once more, I said, “No way did Jake tell you I was an amateur sleuth -- let alone a good one.”

“He didn’t say you were a good one,” Kane admitted with a little bit of a twinkle -- yeah, a twinkle, and if that wasn’t stagecraft, I don’t know what is. “But he did say you had a real knack for it.”

Was that what he’d said? Interesting. Because I distinctly remembered…

Yeah, misty watercolor memories. There must have been something grim about my expression because Kane said quickly, “It wouldn’t be a formal arrangement or anything.”

“What wouldn’t?”

“I was thinking that you might -- unofficially -- ask a few questions.”

“About?” I blinked. “You’re not asking me to…what are you asking?”

He reached across and squeezed my hand in a lightly reassuring gesture. “It probably sounds mad, but I think someone like yourself would have greater luck getting to the bottom of this tragedy than Jake and his storm troopers. And I say this as someone who adores Jake, with or without his storm troopers.”

I was still trying to make sense of the words “Jake” and “adore” in the same sentence. “I’m not sure I’m following,” I said slowly. I already knew that Jake and Kane were playmates -- but former playmates? Or was Jake back doing the club scene? And they were apparently friends? Like, did they go to each other’s birthday parties? It seemed unlikely, given how skittish Jake had been about our own friendship. I said, “I feel like I need to ask: what exactly is your relationship to Jake?”

Kane’s brows drew together. “I thought you knew. Jake and I have been lovers for about five years.”

I didn’t say a word.

Apparently I didn’t need to.

He said awkwardly, “I don’t know why I thought you realized.” His sensual mouth pulled into a little grimace. “I knew about you.”

There was a grinning Buddha statue sitting a few feet from us; I could see it peering right over Paul Kane’s shoulder, and I felt like I had been staring at that knowing stone face for years, and that years from now I would be able to close my eyes and still see those crinkled laughing eyes and the wide gleeful mouth and the delicate folds of jowls frozen in sidesplitting merriment. And I thought maybe I didn’t need to worry about my heart anymore because it had stopped beating a couple of seconds earlier, and I was still sitting there living and breathing -- though admittedly I wasn’t feeling much of anything.

“No,” I said, “I didn’t know.” And I was startled to hear that level, cool voice come out of my face.

“Anyway,” Kane continued, “It occurred to me when that ape, Detective Alonzo, was grilling me for the third time that people are far more likely to talk to someone like you than the police. Someone with a little tact. A little sensitivity. A little discretion. I could ask people to cooperate with you, and they would. Of course any information you uncovered would be immediately turned over to Jake. I’m not asking you to solve a murder or anything, just to…informally support the efforts of our boys in blue.”

I laughed -- and that was a surprise too because I didn’t really find much funny about this. “You can’t have discussed this with Jake. He would never have agreed to it.”

“Er…no,” admitted Kane. “But I don’t tell Jake everything.” His eyes met mine. “And Jake doesn’t tell me everything.”

Which I suppose was intended to restore confidence that my boyish secrets were still my own.

I said, “I don’t think you realize how badly Jake reacts to interference in a police investigation. Believe me, it wouldn’t be pleasant -- for either of us.”

I had a sudden memory of myself flat on my back blinking up at the decorative molding of my entrance hall, and Jake, his face dark with fury, looming over me.

“Let me handle Jake,” Kane said, and he spoke with easy confidence. Hey, and why not? He’d survived five years and Jake’s marriage. Safe to say he knew Jake a great deal better than I ever had.

He smiled at me, waiting for my answer. It was petty, but it was a pleasure to deny him something. I said with false regret, “I don’t think so, Paul. I don’t think it would be a wise move on my part.”

It seemed to catch him by surprise, though he recovered fast, hiding his disappointment. “Bollocks! Is there a way I can convince you to change your mind?”

I was shaking my head, still regretful but firm. I sipped my orange juice, and I was pleased that my hand was perfectly steady. Maybe it was because I felt numb. Or maybe it was because it had all been a long time ago, and none of it really mattered now.

He eyed me speculatively. “You know, mate, it’s going to be very difficult for me to concentrate on getting this film of yours made while I’m under a cloud of suspicion.”

He did it beautifully -- charming and rueful and mostly joking. Not for one instant did it seem a serious threat. And it’s not like I was a stranger to the gentle art of blackmail; my mother would have put Charles Augustus Milverton to shame. And in Kane’s favor, I understood very well how it felt to be the prime suspect in a murder investigation. He had my sympathy there, even if I thought he was wrong about being the prime suspect; I happened to know that I was a popular contestant in the suspect sweepstakes too.

Which, come to think of it, did me give an incentive in seeing this investigation wrapped up as quickly and quietly as possible.

He must have caught my hesitation because he coaxed, “What about this? Suppose you simply start out by asking a few informal questions, and if you decide you don’t want to continue, then it ends right there. I won’t say another word.”

I sighed.

“Please?” he said.

He really was a very good-looking man, and he really did have an engaging smile. All the same, I’d have read his obituary without a flicker of regret. And how unfair was that? He’d done nothing to hurt me. It wasn’t Paul Kane I should be angry with -- assuming I should be angry with anyone.

So I said slowly, reluctantly, “I guess it wouldn’t kill me to ask a few questions.”

You’d think by then I’d have known better.