Page 20 of Fade Out

Franklin was a hometown boy. So was I for that matter. Brian had come up from Springfield. Not a huge move but enough to make him believe moving was a good way to solve a problem. And maybe it was.

“But why not just hide and collect the money?” Brian asked.

“You mean, why kill someone?

“Yeah. She didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to try and frame you.”

“Vengeance. Another reason not to leave. You can’t get revenge if you’re hundreds of miles away.”

Franklin shivered. “I’d better go finish dinner.”

After he left, I picked up the brochure for 2100 N. Lincoln and asked, “You thinking of moving?”

He shook his head and pointed to the kitchen. In a low voice his said, “Franklin got it for me.”

“He thinks you should move?”

“He’s trying to distract me. Get me to think about something besides Ross.”

For a moment I caught a glimpse of how difficult Franklin’s life must be just then. His boyfriend absorbed by his dying ex. He must feel terrible for Brian and jealous of Ross and terrible about feeling jealous.

“He’s being amazing though,” Brian said. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

It’s annoying when people you don’t like turn out to be pretty decent.

“I’m glad it’s working out.”

“It is…” he said, sounding a little surprised and happy all at once.

“The police destroyed my place. Do you think I could stay on your couch?”

“You can have the guest room.”

“Guest room?” Itwasa guest room, but it had become Terry’s room. Terry was the seventeen-year-old we’d been semiparenting. “Where’s Terry?”

“Moved in with Scott.” Scott was his thirty-two-year-old boyfriend who called him ‘Champ.’

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Because he knows you wouldn’t approve.”

“Do you approve?”

“I don’t know, Nick. Life is short,” he shrugged. “He says he’s happy.”

“This guy is probably going to dump Terry before he turns twenty-one,” I pointed out. Typical behavior among guys who like them young. Chicken hawks.

“I know. But the relationship can still mean something to Terry. A couple of years is longer than Ross and I were together. I wouldn’t give up that time just because it was short.”

It was also longer than I’d been with Harker. Or Joseph. He was kind not to have mentioned that.

Franklin brought out two dinner plates and I sat with them while they ate. Franklin tried to keep the conversation away from anything challenging. “Did you hear, Madonna was in a porno? It was in the paper this morning. She’s suing to keep it from coming out.”

“I think I’ll pass,” I said.

“You don’t want to see Madonna in an orgy?”

“Franklin, we’re eating,” Brian said. We were silent a moment, then he said, “Ross told me not to call his family until afterward. He said they can have his body, but he doesn’t want to see them.”