Goldenboy by Michael Nava

kitchen closes at ten.”
    “So if anyone was
back here after ten he’d need a key to get out?”
    “Uh-huh,” he said.
    “But there’s a key
at the bar.”
    He looked at me and
blinked. “Yeah, for emergencies.”
    “Show me the
cellar,” I said.
    I followed him back
down the corridor and around the front of the walk-in refrigerator. We passed
briefly through the kitchen and then went down a rickety flight of stairs into
the cellar. We stood in a big, dark room that had a damp, fruity smell. Behind
locked wooden screens were hundreds of bottles of wine. The room was otherwise
bare. He showed me two smaller rooms adjacent to each other. The door to one of
them was open, revealing a cluttered desk. The door to the other was closed.
    “That’s where they
found Jim,” he said. “You want to go in?” His voice indicated clearly that he
didn’t.
    “Maybe later,” I
said, giving him a break.
    We went into his
office. He sat in a battered swivel chair behind a desk made of a thick slab of
glass supported by metal sawhorses. There was a phone on the wall, its lights
flashing.
    He closed a ledger
on the desk before him and offered me a cup of coffee. I declined.
    “How’s Jim?” he
asked.
    ‘‘Surviving.’’
    “I’m really sorry
about what happened,” he said, defensively. “They told me I had to testify.”
    “Of course you did,”
I said soothingly. “You seem pretty young to be managing this place.”
    “I’m twenty-two,”
he protested, and must have caught my smile. “I usually just manage the floor
but Mark — he’s the head guy — he’s out sick today.”
    “Have you worked
here long?”
    “Six years. I
started as a busboy.”
    “You go to school?”
    He picked up a
paper clip. “Two years at UCLA. I dropped out.”
    “Why?”
    He flattened out
the paper clip. “Is that important?”
    “I won’t know until
you tell me.”
    He set the paper
clip aside. “I didn’t know what I was doing there,” he said. “I never was much
for school.”
    I accepted this,
for the moment. “What was Jim like to work with?”
    He was visibly
relieved by the change of subject. “He was a hard worker,” Josh said. “Reliable.”
    “You ever see him
outside of work?”
    He shook his head
and picked up a pencil.
    “Were you surprised
to find out he was gay?”
    Our eyes caught. “What
do you mean?”
    “Didn’t Brian tell
you Jim was gay?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you believe
him?”
    He put the pencil
down. “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    He looked at the
desk. “I don’t know. I just did.”
    I let his answer hang
in the air. He picked up the paper clip again.
    “And later you
heard Brian threaten to tell Jim’s parents.”
    “It wasn’t exactly
like that,” he said, softly.
    “No?”
    “It was more — like
a joke,” he said, raising his head slowly. “Brian said something like, ‘You
want your mama to know you suck cock?’ like the way little kids insult each
other.”
    “And Jim? Did he
know it was a joke?”
    “I think so,” he
replied. “He kind of laughed and said, ‘I’ll kill you first.”‘
    “Where did this
happen?”
    “The locker room.
We were all changing for work.”
    “This was the only
time you ever heard them say anything to each other like this?”
    “Yes,” he said, and
bit his lower lip.
    “You know, Josh,” I
said, “this sounds entirely different than it did when you testified at the
prelim.”
    “I told the
prosecutor but he kept saying that Jim really meant it because, you know, he
did kill Brian. I guess he convinced me.”
    “Do you think Jim
killed Brian?” I asked.
    “That’s what they
say. All the evidence looks pretty bad for Jim.”
    “Do you think he
did it?” I asked again.
    Josh took off his
glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. “I don’t know,” he said,
finally.
    “Can you think of
anyone else who would have a reason to kill Brian Fox?”
    He shook his head
quickly.
    “Where were you the
night he was killed?”
    He