First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery (26 page)

“Right. When you said my father’s name, that’s when I knew it was him. I ran away and headed right over to Michael’s house. I told him what happened and total y broke down.

“Michael cal ed Alana, my wife, and she came over. They sat with me for hours. First, they told me that I should never have cal ed my father. That he was an evil man and that I had brought this pain upon myself. Then, they told me this was our father’s ultimate ‘fuck you’to me. That he jumped knowing I was coming over, knowing that I’d see him, just to mess me up even further.”

“And you believed them?”

“You have to understand, Michael has a way with me. Maybe he has it with a lot of people. When he says things, they just make sense. He’s very persuasive.”

I’d seen that for myself at The Center. He had that crowd in the palm of his hand. And later, in the hal way, he almost convinced me to go with him to his office, despite the fact that I was afraid of him.

“The things he told me were the things I had heard my entire life. He made me hate my father again.

That’s why I was so awful at the reading of his wil . I thought he kil ed himself just to hurt me.”

“Paul,” I said gently, “I know you didn’t know him, but I did. I don’t believe that he kil ed himself. Not for a minute.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Paul said. “I’ve been replaying our conversation in my head ever since that night. He was looking forward to seeing me. I
know
that. Why would he take his own life? Why then, of al times?”

“So, if he didn’t kil himself, what
do
you think happened?” I was sure now that Michael was the kil er, but I wanted Paul to be the one who said it.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Maybe it was an accident?”

“What kind of accident?”

Paul looked like the child he had been when his father left them. “I don’t know,” he whined. “Maybe he fel .”

“Doing what? Practicing his balance beam on the ledge?”

“I don’t know!” He banged his fist on the table, causing his gin and tonic to soak the cuff of his shirt.

He didn’t seem to notice.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Freddy turn around to face us. He started to get up from his stool.

“Everything’s fine,” I said to Paul, but real y to Freddy, who I knew could hear us on his headset.

Freddy nodded and turned back.

Tears came back to Paul’s eyes. “It’s not fine!

Nothing’s fine!”

I thought I’d give it another go. “Paul, what
do
you think happened to your father?”

“He kil ed him!” Paul’s eyes were wide and bulging, the muscles in his neck strained.

“Who kil ed him?”

“I don’t know.” The whine was back.

“You said ‘he.’”

“I meant ‘whoever.’ Maybe another guy he was seeing.” He gestured around the room. “Or another hustler. I don’t know.”

“No, Paul. He didn’t have anyone else over that night. He was waiting for you.” I told him about what Randy Bostinick had said.

Paul’s face crumpled. He real y did look a child again. He bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he cried. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” He put his hands on his temples and rubbed furiously.

It was as if Paul was cycling through personalities before my eyes. Confident businessman, sorrowful son, petulant teenager, lost child.

But given everything he had gone through in the last few weeks, could I blame him? In a short time he had accepted his own sexual orientation, let go of the hate and anger he’d been indoctrinated with, final y reached out to his father, and then lost him—

Paul Harrington had been through a lot of changes. I regretted that what I was going to say might push him further along the edge.

“Paul,” I said gently. This time, I took his hands. He looked off into space with a steady fixed stare. “Paul.

Look at me.”

His head weighed a hundred pounds. He turned it slowly. His eyes met mine, but they were blank and unfocused.

“Paul: Do you think your brother could have kil ed your father?”

“Michael wouldn’t hurt anyone.” His voice had a hol ow, robotic ring.

“Is that true?” I asked.

“Michael wouldn’t hurt anyone.” The exact same intonation.

“He hurt me, Paul.” I pointed to the bruise on my face. Actual y, I didn’t know for sure that it had been Michael in the hotel room, but I had to break through Paul’s withdrawal.

“Oh Lord,” Paul pul ed his hands from mine and buried his face in them. “He told me never again, never again.”

“Never again?”

“Not another boy.”

“Did he hurt another boy, Paul?”

“He hurt me!” This time, Paul was loud enough that several heads turned. He didn’t notice.

“ H e
liked

hurting

me,”

Paul

continued.

“Sometimes it would start as tickling, or wrestling, you know. He told me al brothers did it. But he’d always carry it too far. He’d make me cry, and then make me beg him to stop. The more I’d beg, the more excited he’d get.”

“Excited?”

“Once I saw it,” Paul whispered fiercely. “He was hard. He was hard from hurting me. I was so
ashamed
!”

“You didn’t do anything to be ashamed of,” I told him.

“I liked it!” he cried. “Don’t you get it? He’d hurt me and I’d like it. I liked the closeness, how strong he was, that I was the one getting his attention. It was so fucking … sick!”

“You were kids,” I said.

Paul winced. “It didn’t stop until he went to col ege.”

Oh.

“Did you have sex?” I asked him.

“No. It wasn’t about sex. Wel , not normal sex. It was about power. And I think Michael always knew I was gay and he was punishing me. And, God help me, I wanted to be punished.”

We sat quietly for a moment. I didn’t know what to say. I looked up to see Freddy once again looking at me.

“Holy shit!” he mouthed.

I wanted to know as much about Michael’s psychology as I could. “Did you ever talk about it with him?”

Paul sat up a little straighten He looked up at me again.

“When he came back for his summer home after his freshman year at col ege. He told me that he had taken psychology courses in school, and that it helped him understand that what we were doing was wrong. That my wanting to be hurt was a sickness, and that he should never have gone along with it.

That he’d never hurt anyone again.

“He made it sound like it al happened because of me. But it was OK, he told me. It was al my father’s fault. Of course I was neurotic. He said he could help me. We’d spend hours in my room. Just talking. He’d learned hypnosis from a professor of his, and he’d put me under. He told me he was freeing me from my self destructive patterns.”

“He’d hypnotize you?”

Paul nodded.

“Did it work?”

“Did it make me straight? Did it make me stop wanting men? No. Did it make me hate myself for what I was feeling? Yes.”

Paul’s face was a portrait of anguish.

I leaned forward. “Paul, I’m so, so sorry that he did that to you. But he’s doing it to other men, too. Every day. That’s what his whole practice is about. He’s using the same techniques he used on you to make hundreds of other men miserable.”

Paul nodded. “I know.”

“It’s wrong.”

“I know.”

“Do you think he’s stil hypnotizing you?” I asked.

“No, we haven’t done that for years.”

“But you said he has a lot of control over you.” Paul was silent.

“A lot of influence.” I reminded him of his own words.

Paul looked down at the table again.

“Are there ever occasions when you’re with him and you can’t remember what happened? Or there’s missing time?”

Paul gave the tiniest nod. I would have missed it if I weren’t looking so hard.

He didn’t look up. He could have been talking to the table. He said, “And you know what? When that happens, when I think that I’ve just zoned out and I find him staring at me … the look on his face?

“It scares me.”

“Holy mother of Christmas,” Freddy said when I walked back into the bar after having made sure that Paul got safely into his cab. By the time we had finished talking, Paul was a wreck, and I didn’t trust him to make it home in one piece.

“I know,” I agreed.

“That story had everything in it but the bloodhounds snappin’ at his rear end.”

“I know.”

Freddy peered into my eyes. “Are you OK?”

“I think I need to sit down.” It had been a long day.

Freddy got off his stool and steered me into it.

“And maybe a drink.”

Freddy handed me his beer. I downed it in seconds.

Freddy put his arms around me. The hug made me feel better than the beer had.

“That good?”

I nodded. “Thanks. You always seem to know what to do.”

“That’s what sisters are for,” Freddy said.

“Let’s go somewhere a little less creepy.” This being New York City, the nearest coffee house was eighteen steps away. We sat in comfortable chairs and had some kind of frozen blended coffee chocolate thing with whipped cream and caramel.

We both got the largest possible size.

“So, what do you think?” I asked him.

“I think my headset almost melted in my ear,” he said. “That was a hot story.”

“Freddy!”

“Wel it was,” Freddy said. “The hunky older guy who holds you down and tickles you until you can’t catch your breath? Hel o! You’ve seen that Michael Harrington—you got to admit you could do worse than being straddled by that stal ion.”

I shook my head. “That’s gross. They were brothers.”

“OK,” Freddy admitted. “That part was kind of gross. But stil , Michael Harrington. He’s like Christian Bale in
American Psycho.
The yummiest sadist in town.”

“Do you think he could have kil ed his father?”

“My guess? He’s capable of anything.”

“That’s what I think, too.”

Just then, a dead-sexy guy in running shorts and tank top came in to order something. Freddy looked at him like a vulture spies a particularly delectable carcass.

“Could you excuse me a second?” Freddy went to the counter right behind the guy. Somehow, he started a conversation with him. I heard them both laughing and I turned away.

Two minutes later, Freddy returned with a scone and the guy’s card.

“What was that al about,” I asked.

“The runner? An old friend of my mother. I was just sending her regards. But back to business: Why do you think Michael is stil hypnotizing his brother?”

“It’s al about domination. That’s what he gets off on. His whole business, his whole life, is based on his fetish for control. Plus, when Paul’s in a trance, who knows what Michael does to him?”

We sat for a moment. Just when I thought Freddy was going to make another al usion to
Charlie’s
Angels,
he surprised me.

“You want to talk about what happened with Tony?”

“Wow,” I said. “Do you know that Paul’s revelations were so shocking that I haven’t thought about Tony al night? Wel , not until you just brought him up, that is. Thanks.”

“Sorry,” Freddy said, looking concerned.

“Naw, it’s al right. I think I’m fine. If there were more time to think about it, maybe I’d be more upset.

Freddy gave me one more sympathetic look. “So, let’s not think about it,” he said, brightly. “Tel me how you left things with Paul when you took him to the cab.”

“Nowhere, real y. I think he felt better after he got al that off his chest, though. He told me he was thinking of coming out to his wife and getting on with his life. He said he thinks that’s what his father would have wanted. He sounded optimistic.”

“So, maybe he’l have a happy ending after al . As opposed to just having a ‘happy ending,’ which I think you probably spoiled for him when you brought the wal s of Jericho down on him at Sex-bar.”

“I suggested he avoid Michael for a while, though.

That guy real y does scare me.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Freddy said. “If Michael is doing crazy shit to his own brother when he’s got him hypnotized, what do you think he’s doing to his clients?”

I got a shiver. “I don’t know,” I answered truthful y.

“I bet it’s nothing good,” Freddy said.

“We have to stop him.”

“I agree. But how?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to figure it out.”

Romeos at the Balcony

ON THE WAY
home, I had the cab drop me off at the corner deli so I could grab some milk and a box of cookies. I figured if I were going to take a few days off, I could afford to gain a percent or two of body fat. Besides, I’d been beaten up and dumped today. I deserved to pig out.

Fuck it, I thought, standing in front of the Ben and Jerry’s assortment in the freezer case. I might as wel go whole hog.

I was trying to decide on which flavor of ice cream I wanted when my iPhone rang. I put the Bluetooth receiver in my ear and picked up.

“Hel o,” came the high, thin voice of Melvin Cuttlebeck. “We had a phone session scheduled for tonight?”

Melvin, my favorite wannabe S&M top. He was right. I had completely forgotten to put it in my calendar. Oh wel , he finished so fast we’d probably be done before I choose my dessert.

“Yes sir,” I said. “I’m ready.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I mean, ‘good boy.’” He proceeded to rattle off a fantasy about restraining and torturing me. Of course, his version of torture ran along the lines of “I’m spanking your bottom now (but don’t worry, not too hard),” and “how would you like it if I gave you a real y dirty look?” Why couldn’t al sadists be like Melvin? He’s so sweet that he taught me how to escape his own bondage devices. He indulges his fantasies without real y hurting anyone. Unlike a certain Harrington boy, I thought.