Free Revision of Justice by John Morgan Wilson Page B

the afternoon with Fred and me at the thrift shop. I’m sure they’d find something useful for you to do. Sorting goods. Sweeping up—”
    It was something Maurice suggested every few months, testing to see where I was on the subject of AIDS. I was still in the same place I’d been since Jacques’s death—I wanted nothing to do with the world of AIDS in any way, shape, or form.
    “Try me in another month or two, Maurice. Maybe—”
    “I understand.”
    I carried my coffee upstairs to call Templeton, feeling more like a doomed man with every step.
    There must have been a million aspiring freelance writers who would have killed for the chance to cowrite an article for Angel City at a buck a word, even without full credit. To me, it felt like a sentence of punishment. It meant returning to an occupation where I could never be anything more than Templeton’s shadow, where my past would cling to me like sewage, where my name would always leave its peculiar stink on the story. Not exactly a fulfilling way to work, but employment nonetheless, which I badly needed at that moment.
    I dialed Templeton’s number with mixed feelings. She picked up halfway through the first ring.
    “Benjamin. I was just about to call you.”
    I could hear Joshua Redman in the background, blowing “Sweet Sorrow” on his mournful sax. It seemed an appropriate tune.
    “I’m accepting your offer, Templeton. Fifty-fifty, down the middle. On one condition.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I’ll need a cash advance. Say, a thousand by the end of the week.”
    “That sounds doable. What changed your mind?”
    “The prospect of homelessness.”
    “Always a great motivator. Where would you like to start?”
    I didn’t have to think about it long.
    “Daniel Romero.”
    A telling moment of silence followed.
    “Why am I not surprised?”
    “Don’t start, Templeton.”
    “I noticed how you were looking at him last night. You think you can keep your professional distance?”
    “Probably not. You have his number?”
    I jotted down the ten digits that came over the phone. Then I asked her how she got them.
    “Confidential source.”
    “Does your confidential source weigh three hundred pounds and chew sugarless gum?”
    “Let me know what you learn from Romero. And remember, Justice—you’re a reporter now.”
    “After a fashion.”
    “Keep me posted.”
    I heard a click at her end, and cut the connection at mine just long enough to get a new dial tone.
    Then I punched in Daniel Romero’s number, feeling my pulse race a little, which it hadn’t done for a long, long time.

Chapter Nine
     
    Daniel Romero lived on a badly potholed stretch of Fountain Avenue in a two-story apartment building the sickly color of gourmet mustard.
    Out front, some Hispanic and black kids were splashing in a play pool while an older sister kept an eye on them, then more warily on me as I mounted the front steps.
    Romero’s apartment was on the second floor, at the end of an exterior landing that needed sweeping. A note on his door directed visitors to the garage at the rear of the building.
    I followed a cracked concrete driveway past sad-looking shrubbery and shriveled weeds struggling to survive in arid ground until I reached a row of small garages out back.
    In one of them, Romero was kneeling, hand-sanding an unvarnished table, with sawdust and carpentry tools all around him. He’d shaved away his whiskers, leaving his face smooth and boyish, with a razor nick under his chin. Faded jeans and a cheap tank top hung loosely on his lanky frame. On his upper arms I counted three Indian-style tattoos, stitched in dyes of red and blue.
    At his side was an old golden retriever who barked half-heartedly before getting up slowly to greet me with a busy tail.
    “Hello, Daniel.”
    He got to his feet with some effort, his eyes big and dark in his narrow face.
    “Danny,” he said.
    We shook hands.
    “It was Daniel last night.”
    “I was talking to a cop last