Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (122 page)

She refused to let him put her off.
It’s just what I see
, she told him. More often than not, he had to admit there’d been validity to what she told him, even if it became apparent only with hindsight.

He was watching the change in her eyes, the leaden greyness coming in to chase out the light, the zombie reflexes that passively accepted the poison drop by drop. Absorbing, conquering her. Taking over her will until there was nothing left to fight with.

She smiled and reached for his hand.

“Old friend,” she said. “Thanks for being here.”

“I’m always here for you.”

“I know. I’m well taken care of. It’s Adele I worry about. If I go first, I don’t know what she’ll do. She acts tough, but she’s a softie inside.”

“Let’s worry about that when the time comes. For now, make sure you tell me if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“There’s only one thing. You already know what it is.”

She didn’t have to tell him: a decade earlier, her teenage son had gone missing. The boy, Lonnie, had shown signs of personality disorder at the time, though Domingo hadn’t fully understood the extent of the problem. He’d been experimenting with drugs and she put his strangeness down to that. Then he disappeared. Despite everything, he’d always been a loyal, loving son. There was no reason for him to vanish outright.

Dan pursued the case whole-heartedly at the time, but nothing came of it. Then he and Domingo had a falling out and he’d let it linger at the back of his filing cabinet. Now she lay in a hospital ward undergoing chemotherapy in a fight to save her life. It was time to reopen the investigation.

In the ensuing years, Domingo had convinced herself that her son was dead. No news was often not good news in Dan’s business, but it was a reason to stray on the side of hope rather than despair. Sometimes people went on hoping for years — the eternally optimistic — despite having nothing to go on. Maybe it was a talent for faith or just a better choice than premature grief. Domingo wasn’t one of those. She expected the worst, but mostly she wanted to know the truth before her health failed completely, another thing she was not optimistic about.

Right before he vanished, Domingo and Adele took Lonnie for counselling, but he refused to continue after a second visit. He claimed the doctors were purposely messing with his head and he wanted none of it. At her wit’s end, Domingo asked Dan to help. He tried talking to the boy. They’d always had a good rapport. Lonnie had looked after Ked on more than one occasion when Dan was strapped for a sitter. But by then Lonnie had gone from a friendly, outgoing boy to a sullen, suspicious young man. Dan said his bit then gave up. He could tell he wasn’t getting through to him. He concluded by reminding Lonnie he could always talk to Dan in confidence any time. A week later the boy left, taking with him a knapsack and a change of clothes. Not much to live on. They all thought he’d be back, but it was the last time anyone heard from him for months.

Then, nearly a year after vanishing, he called his mother out of the blue at Christmas from an area code just outside Quebec City. She told Dan he sounded disoriented, but managed to say he was living with a group of young people. He declined to say where he was exactly, but said he was happy. Two minutes later he was crying and telling her he missed her. Domingo begged him to come home, riveted by the fear that something terrible would happen if he didn’t. He refused. By the following year she was convinced he was dead. He’d come to her in a dream, she said. He was trying to fly, while all around him people were yelling, “Jump! Jump!” She watched him fall.

Since then the trail had dwindled to nothing. Lonnie had successfully disappeared, taking with him his burgeoning soccer skills, a drug habit, and whatever chemical imbalance was affecting his thinking. In the meantime, Dan sent out queries and requests for a follow-up. A few police contacts sent possible leads. All of them came to nothing. Dan tried another round of inquiries, but they too led nowhere. The trail had gone cold. Since then, nothing. Now, he was determined to try once again for his friend who lay dying in a hospital bed.

Dan looked up. The bags were empty.

The door opened. Adele was back with a rush of air, giving him the sour look she always had reserved for him. It was time to go.

Eight

Demimonde

On Tuesdays, Ked played basketball after school before going for pizza with his friends. Dan had no desire to eat alone, so he made his way to the gaybourhood upon leaving the hospital. His feelings were conflicted regarding the four square blocks that constituted his community. Some days he found them too shabby, too confining. Nothing that was easily defined, just that they were lacking in pizzazz. They needed more “Ooh-la-la!,” as Donny put it.

Dan’s former therapist suggested the nagging voice in his head was a reflection of his low self-esteem, making him hold the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood in parallel low regard. Self-hatred, self-inflicted homophobia. It was the psychology of being seen as a minority. Maybe, but Dan didn’t mind being a minority. He would happily declare that everyone is a minority of one sort or another.
Just look hard enough and you’ll find the divide between you and every other human being who walks the earth
, was his thinking. In any case, there wasn’t another community he could opt into if he opted out of this one. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Like it or not, this was his second home and he knew enough to be grateful for it, however begrudgingly.

Wandering north along Church Street, he could see the neighbourhood was changing again. He still recalled the days when the ghetto sprawled in from Yonge Street, stretching as far north as Isabella where two of the more popular bars, Chaps and Komrads, ruled. Back then there’d been little of note on Church, but rent was substantially cheaper than the gouging that went on elsewhere. In the space of a year, two new bars opened and the tide came east, helping create a unified neighbourhood with its first openly gay city councillor and a bi-weekly press. With unification came money, however, changing the tone and forcing out the smaller establishments, like the bookshops and clothing boutiques that couldn’t compete with bars and strip clubs. Wherever you went, there were always going to be winners and losers. The losers were the ones Dan missed most.

A decade earlier, he could have told you his favourite bar in the neighbourhood. No longer. His old haunts were gone. In a pinch, the Black Eagle served a purpose, and that purpose was to socialize lightly and sometimes meet a hook-up — seldom more — when the keening edge of loneliness came over him. If nothing else, on those long, lonely nights he could hang out unnoticed in its darker corners where his scruffy sex appeal hid its allure for the wrong sort. No matter how old he got, Dan discovered, there was always someone he wasn’t interested in trying to hit on him, even when he gave off all signals to the contrary.

Like it or not, he’d become a known commodity at the Eagle. If he stuck his face into the light long enough to be recognized, that is. The bartenders greeted him affably, joking about after-hours dates, which he always politely declined. Not a snob, he simply chose not to hang out with bar workers. He vividly recalled the days when one drink inevitably led to five or six or sometimes more, inebriation following in its wake. He hoped they were gone forever. He didn’t need to remind himself that risky sex had on occasion been a part of that dark picture. Somehow, little thanks to himself, he’d survived his youthful folly and looked forty in the eye without blinking. It seemed the edge of oblivion for most gay men, but he was grateful to have reached it.

A handful of patrons sat around the downstairs bar. Dan knew the type: pleasant, non-aggressive fixtures on the scene, always on the lookout for company or comfort. A good man or a full glass, it didn’t matter much, one served as well as the other on any given day. Half a dozen heads turned to clock Dan’s entry. From a few came a friendly nod. He returned the acknowledgement. That was all for the present. Come closing time, he’d no doubt be on several mental checklists with unspoken captions like, “Where did that sexy, dark-haired dude go?” Later on they might be glad to see him still standing in some corner or else perplexed that he’d got away without being noticed.

The place had recently been refurbished, transforming the Eagle’s interior from a derelict grunge bar to a sleek hangout, Manhattan-style. This was largely an older bunch, unlike the twinks at Woody’s or the flashier dance crowd at Crews & Tangos. When the Saddle closed, its patrons had washed up here, though the move wasn’t entirely willing. A simpler type of bar-goer, for whom a costume served as a personal greeting, they found the Eagle intimidating, too chi-chi despite its hardcore S&M roots. It was a matter of knowing your style. A latex bodysuit was not a substitute for denim and a riding crop. Still, the management didn’t turn patrons away for breaking any sort of unspoken dress code. It was a friendly bar, all things considered.

Dan sidled up to the counter, ordered a pint of Keith’s, then proceeded to tour the place. The second floor yielded a total of a dozen men, most of them planted on the outdoor patio to smoke. Inside, others listlessly watched porn in the wan afternoon light on oversized screens secured above the bar. The effect was unsettling. You might come in thinking of your grocery list or the chores you needed to accomplish that weekend, but you always left in a zombie-fied stupor, usually alone, thinking of sex. It was that simple. Addictions made easy.

Dan watched the screens for a while, then turned away. No matter the performer, the accoutrements or the setting, the story arc was always the same. There were just so many variations on desire before the theme got monotonous. He’d just finished his beer when an ethereal blonde caught his eye. Dan watched him approach, dreamy and distant. He waited to see if the man would lose his nerve and falter before veering off to the bathroom. Whatever he was on seemed to keep his will focused, even while his steps were unsteady. He walked up to Dan and put a hand out.

“Gerry.”

“Hi, Gerry. I’m Dan.”

Dan waited for him to make a quick excuse and bolt once he got a closer look at the unshaven face, the scar angling from his right eyebrow, but instead he stayed and his smile grew. Gerry seemed to have a taste for the darker things in life.

“Dan the Mysterious Cowboy.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Dan admitted.

“I hope you deserved it, whatever it was.”

Gerry reached out and groped him. Encountering no resistance, he went in for more, massaging Dan into a semi hard-on. Dan wondered why he even let this begin, since he was only going to break it off in a moment with no intention of carrying things on later.

Gerry increased the offensive. Dan felt a tightening in his groin, the one that said he might soon change his mind. Another thirty seconds and it would be a round of fellatio in the back room. He thought he’d put those days behind him.

He pulled away. Gerry’s expression was pure bliss, though Dan suspected it was at least partly chemically induced.

“Wow,” Gerry said. “I could do with a night of that. Hell, I could do with a lifetime supply.”

“You’re cute as hell,” Dan said. “We should set up a date some time when we both have a lot longer to hang around.”

“Ah.” Gerry looked disappointed. “I was hoping you were here to stay.”

Dan shook his head. “Nope. Just buzzing through. Looking to score, though.”

Gerry’s interested piqued again. “E? K? H?”

“All of the above. You know a guy name of Ziggy who might be able to fill my order?”

A smile flitted over Gerry’s face. He was obviously a devotee of the drug seller.

“That little cutie!” A frown followed. “I used to see him at the Saddle all the time. I don’t know where he hangs out now.”

Dan finished his beer and set it aside. “What about a Cuban named Santiago?”

“Nah. Haven’t seen him for a while, either. A piece of work, that one.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I can hook you up. Whatever you need.”

Chemical delights twitched and writhed at the edge of his mind like three lemons hanging over the visual field of a chronic gambler. Once you saw them, you could never erase the image.

“Got a number?” Gerry asked, running a tongue over his teeth.

Dan shook his head. He didn’t want Gerry calling to offer him anything in the dead of the night, as tempting as a cute, willing young man could be in times of need. But no. Not a good idea.

“Sorry. Just switching providers. How about you give me yours and I’ll call you in a couple days when I’m hooked up?”

Even stoned, Gerry could see through that one.

“Forget it. If you’re not interested now, you won’t be later.”

Dan watched him stagger back across the room. On reaching the doorway, Gerry turned and waved sadly, heartbroken, before heading down to the main floor.

Dan was conscious of being watched from another corner of the room. A face came into focus.

“What was wrong with him?” the bartender called out, wiping a glass on a towel.

Dan smiled. “Nothing. I’m not on the market today.”

“I’ve been trying to get a date with you for years. If he’s below your standards then I haven’t got a chance. The usual soda water for you?”

“Yes. Try not to blink.” Dan paused. “On the other hand, no. I’ll have a second Keith’s. Believe it not.”

“Testing your limits?”

“What have I got to lose?”

“Not your virginity, I’ll bet.”

Dan gave him a wry smile. “You know what they say: it comes back after seven years. I’m due for a return.”

The bartender pulled a pint of gold-and-cream froth, set it on the counter and shook his head when Dan offered to pay.

“Tuesdays virgins drink for free.”

Dan smiled and thanked him, then wandered off to the patio where several men eyed him warily, though none approached. That was fine, as far as he was concerned. There was no sign of Ziggy or anyone else selling drugs.

He finished his drink and wandered back inside, shaking his head when the bartender nodded to his glass for another.