“I think the more interesting question is why you chose work that you must have known would force you to defend guys who reminded you of your dad.”

“I don’t know the answer to that.”

“I do,” he said. “It was your way of facing that fear, of trying to overcome it. The other side of fear is courage. You’re a brave man.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do. Alcoholism is a disease of self-perception. We see other people clearly, but we have a blind spot when it comes to ourselves.” He tapped the pad. “This list is about all the things that conceal the truth from you about who you really are. The purpose is to clear them away so you can really see yourself, maybe for the first time in your life. Your strengths as well as your limitations. Right now, all you see are your limitations, your fears, your worries, the mistakes you’ve made in life. You have to figure out and embrace your strengths. The courage, the honesty, the integrity that I see in you.”

“Patting myself on my back for being a good guy seems kind of self-centered.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’m giving you practical advice.”

“Which is?”

“You can’t continue to live in regret and shame and expect to stay sober.”

“I don’t really understand this, Larry.”

“You don’t have to.” He tapped the pad. “Just do the work.”

I nodded. “Okay. I can do that. You know, I met this kid the other day, a Chicano like me, from a working-class family. They didn’t seem to have any problem with his being gay. I was envious.”

“If we could choose our families, I wouldn’t have picked a bunch of tight-assed Scotch Presbyterians who taught me to stuff my feelings so deep I couldn’t find them until I was in my fifties.” He turned his coffee mug in his hands. “Fortunately, we get to choose our friends and they become our real family. This Chicano boy have anything to do with the case you’re investigating for Myles’s company?”

“The boyfriend of the decedent.” I filled him in on my investigation and on my suspicion that Nick Trejo was sitting on secrets.

“Do you really think the kid killed his lover with a gas leak?”

“Does sound improbable when you say it aloud. But if Ryan was abusing Nick, it could be like the burning bed case they made a TV movie about.”

“The one with Farrah Fawcett? I missed it. What was it about?”

“An abused woman who finally had enough and killed her husband by setting him on fire after he got drunk and raped her and passed out on their bed.”

“She wasn’t in the bed with him when she set him on fire. Your kid was. The gas leak could have killed him too.”

“Yes, well, there’s that. On the other hand, his family was awfully eager to shut down my investigation. They’re protecting him from something.”