First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery (25 page)

I released him and opened the door. He looked surprised.

No more talking. The door is open, Tony. What are you going to do?

He looked at me unblinkingly for one long moment. I saw every kind of regret in his eyes.

His lips parted. I thought he was going to kiss me.

He walked out.

I closed the door, slid down to the floor, and cried myself hoarse.

After I got that out of my system, I took a long shower, put on some clean clothing, and pressed some ice against my cheek.

Truth was, my relationship with Tony died a hundred years ago. He was right. We never should have gotten back together. It was a mistake.

You can’t raise the dead.

You shouldn’t love the dead, either.

Tony was dead to me.

So was Al en.

Was that my problem? That I couldn’t let go?

If the police didn’t think Al en was murdered, maybe I should just accept it and move on.

After al , what was the point of pursuing Al en’s death? It had gotten me beaten up in a hotel room and cost me my one chance to reunite with the man who was probably the great love of my life.

That’s it, I decided, I’m through with Tony
and
with the Harringtons.

It was time to let the dead stay dead.

The phone rang.
Tony
? I thought, hating myself for wishing it was.

But Cal er ID told me it was another man who had been on my mind.

Paul Harrington was cal ing me.

The Shocking Secrets of the Harrington
Boys

“TELL ME AGAIN
what you want me to do,” Freddy asked when I cal ed him one minute after I finished talking with Paul.

“Just be at the bar where I’m going to meet Paul and sit in the back. I don’t want him to see you. Then just… watch. Just to make sure he doesn’t try anything funny.”

“Honey, I’ve seen Paul Harrington,” Freddy said.

“The only funny thing he’d try would be to give you a handjob under the table.”

“No, I think one of the Harrington boys might want to have me hurt.”

“Just because Michael looked like he wanted to eat you alive the other night? And I mean, like Hannibal Lecter wanted to eat Clarice,” Freddy clarified.

“No,” I answered. I told Freddy what happened at the hotel.

“What!” Freddy said. “Are you shitting me?”

“I wish I were.”

“Have you told your cop boyfriend about it?”

“I was about to, but then he dumped me.” I explained what just went down between me and Tony.

“Poor baby,” Freddy said. “Honey, I’m so sorry.” Freddy loved me, but to tel you the truth, he didn’t sound
that
sorry.

“Thanks, but I real y don’t want to focus on that right now. The point is, we’re not going to get any help from him.”

“Doesn’t sound like. But why are you meeting Paul?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthful y. “I guess I’m curious. He said he wanted to talk to me but he wouldn’t say why. I was just about to give up on the Harringtons when he cal ed. Maybe it’s a sign.”

“‘Wet floor’ is a sign, too, angel. One you’re supposed to
avoid.
Like the Harringtons.”

“I know, but if I don’t do this, I’l just spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Let me see what he has to say. I’l let him know that the warning I got today worked and that I’m backing off.”

“Are you?”

“I was half an hour ago. Now, I don’t know. Wil you help me?”

“Honey,”

Freddy

asked,

“what

are

you,

meshuggana? Of course I’l be there. But listen—

how about you cal me on your cel and leave it on the table while you and Paul talk. That way, I can listen, too.”

“You’re a genius,” I told him. “Thanks, Freddy.” For our meeting, Paul picked a bar wel known as a place where married men of means could meet in a dark and discrete setting. From its mahogany bar to its twenty dol ar martinis, live piano player, and subdued track lighting, Intermission reeked of money and good taste.

Of course, the men who came here were rarely interested in meeting each other. The bar was fil ed with hustlers of the highest order, young men with gym toned bodies, fake tans, and higher educations.

Anyone of lesser quality would be ignored or evicted by the imposing bouncer who sat by the door as imposing and immobile as a Rodin.

I knew boys who worked Intermission. They usual y did very wel . The clientele was wel -off and conducted themselves as gentlemen. I avoided it because it sounded like a meat rack, albeit one with leather

seating

and

stunningly

handsome

bartenders.

“I figured I’d pick a place you were used to frequenting,” Paul Harrington said, in lieu of “hel o,” as I settled myself into the booth he had chosen, as far back and as dark as it was possible to find.

“Actual y, I’ve never been here before,” I said.

“How about you?”

“Not real y.”

Just then, a waiter who could have been cast as

“handsome col ege student #2” in a soap opera came to our table.

“Good to see you again, sir,” he said to Paul in a deep baritone. “The usual?”

While Paul cringed and ordered, I took my cel phone from my pocket, discretely pressed the speed dial number for Freddy, and put it face down on the table. I saw him at the bar, with his back to us, and his Bluetooth headset firmly planted in his ear. He pressed the “answer” button and nodded. I knew he could hear our conversation. Good.

Studly McWaiter turned to me. “And you, sir?” His voice was respectful, but the look he gave me was condescending.

I ordered a bottled water.

“Very good then.” He turned away, revealing an ass as perfect as the rest of him.

Please Freddy, I thought, don’t get too distracted tonight.

Paul put his hands on the table. “If you don’t mind, I’l be direct.”

“I’d appreciate it,” I said.

“How much?”

Huh? Was this a math problem that I missed the first half of? “How much what?”

“I thought we were going to be direct with each other,” Paul said. “How much do you want?” Paul looked very handsome tonight in his expensive suit and expertly knotted tie. His light brown hair was swept back in a slickly plastered down helmet not seen since the movie
Wall Street,
but it looked good on him. He might not have the expansively muscular build of his brother, but his shoulders were wide and his chest was broad.

His light blue eyes were very attractive, but I thought I saw a little redness there, too.

Had he been working late nights? Crying? Or was there stil a little Mace left in them?

There was no way to know—at least not yet. I had to admit, though, Paul Harrington was a man who got better looking the more you saw him. I could total y see how he hooked up with that hot guy at Sexbar.

But stil , ewwww. The fact that he wanted to have sex with me when he thought I had slept with his father was just total y icky.

“This bar is ful of boys you can hire, Paul. I’m not one of them.”

“I’m not talking about
that,”
Paul grimaced. “I’m talking about buying your silence.”

“My silence?”

“Look, you caught me in a very compromising position,” Paul said. “I assume you’re planning on using that information against me. Just as you used my father to get what you wanted.”

“Paul, I didn’t ‘use’ your father. We were friends.

And I’m not going to blackmail you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Let’s not use the word ‘blackmail,’” Paul said.

“Let’s just say I’d like to reward your discretion.” The waiter brought our drinks over.

I picked up my bottle. “OK then, how about the drinks are on you? There, you’ve bought my silence.” Paul looked at me with disbelief. “That’s it?”

“I don’t know who or what you think I am,” I said,

“but I’m not a scam artist and I’m not interested in causing you any trouble. I loved your father too much to hurt his children.”

“You loved my father?”

“Of course, I loved your father. He was a great man.”

Paul’s

careful y

composed

expression

of

skepticism col apsed. He looked suddenly stricken, as if a great pain had descended upon him. “I loved him, too, you know. I just never … never …” He let out a great sob, then immediately brought his hands to his mouth to contain the noise. He wept silently into them.

Two minutes ago, Paul was a cocky son of bitch who was trying to buy me off. Now, he was a sobbing mess. People who have mood swings like that always make me nervous. Was he mental y il ?

Paul took a silk handkerchief from his pocket, squinted hard, and wiped his face. He took a few deep breaths and continued.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I told my own father that I loved him? That’s why I was going there that night.”

Randy told me Al en was meeting one of his sons the night of his death. Now, I knew it was Paul.

Another mystery solved. I was good at this detective stuff!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Freddy giving me a thumbs up.

“I’ve made so many mistakes,” Paul said quietly.

“My own father.” He blinked away more tears.

“Al en told me you hadn’t talked in years,” I said.

“It’s true. But you have to understand what my mother did to me and Michael. She blamed my father bitterly for leaving us. She made it clear we’d be betraying her if we didn’t feel that way, too.

“She always told us that the life he’d ‘chosen’ was destructive and sick. That he picked it over his own children. What we didn’t know was that he was reaching out to us al during our childhood, but my mother wouldn’t let him near us. It wasn’t his homosexuality that wrecked my family, it was her hostility.

“By the time Michael and I were old enough to make our own decisions about contact with our father, we had been brainwashed into seeing him as the enemy. We were just kids, we didn’t know any better.

“She forced us to choose between them, and we chose her.”

I nodded. “But it must have been especial y hard for you,” I said, “what with, you know, liking guys and al .”

Paul reached across the table and grabbed my hands. “You
do
understand,” he said. “It was hel . I was so confused, my whole life. I knew what I wanted, what I
was,
but it was the very thing I had been taught ruined my family’s lives. That it was shameful and sick and wrong.

“I hated myself for so long.” More tears rol ed down his cheek. He took his hands from mine and wiped his eyes.

I felt a lump in my throat, too. Even if he were nuts, I felt his pain.

“Is that why your brother does what he does?” I asked. “This whole thing he has about making gay people straight?”

“Michael’s a very complicated man,” Paul said.

“But yes, I’m sure that’s a part of it.”

“Complicated how?” I asked him.

Paul shuddered. “I don’t want to get into that right now.”

I tried a different track. “You were going to see your father the night of his death?”

“Yes,” Paul said. “I was going to tel him about myself. I was going to ask him to forgive me for al those years of neglect. I wanted to explain things.”

“What happened?”

“I’d thought of cal ing my father for years. I never had the courage or the strength. But I started therapy recently, and I was real y starting to see things differently. My mother moved to Florida, and so I didn’t have to hear her constant critiques of my father. And with Michael’s work getting more demanding, I was seeing a lot less of him, too.

“Michael has a lot of influence over me. A lot of control, you might say.”

Again, he gave a little shudder. There was something going on between him and Michael that troubled him.

Or scared him.

“I final y cal ed him the evening of his death. It was so hard. But the moment he heard it was me, I couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to him. How kind he was, how forgiving. I told him how sorry I was, what an idiot I had been, but he wouldn’t even hear it. He said I was his son and always would be.” Paul stopped for a moment to compose himself.

“He told me to come right over. I got there as soon as I could. But when I arrived, I saw the body on the ground. I stopped for a moment like the rest of the crowd did. Typical NY rubbernecking. I didn’t know who it was. Not until you arrived. What to hear something funny?”

I nodded.

“When I first saw you, I thought to myself ‘what a cute kid. I wonder if I could bag him?’ Of course, this was before I knew you were sleeping with my father.”

“Listen,” I said, “I never slept with your father.” Paul tilted his head in disbelief.

“OK, let me just clear this up once and for al .” I told Paul the true story of how Al en and I met. I explained how we became friends. How I loved him like a father, not a lover. How I thought some of the attention and guidance he gave me was because he was denied the opportunity to give it to his own children.

Paul sighed. “That makes me so sad,” he said.

“But I see now that you gave him a lot of happiness.” He took my hands again. “Thank you for being there when I was too stupid to be a good son.”

“You were tel ing me about the night you went to meet your father.”