Hustle (4 page)

He stood
up straight and watched himself in the mirror as he touched his lighter to the bulb and rotated it slowly. He watched the smoke gather in the glass and sucked it back. He blew out the smoke at his reflection. The chemical taste made him feel comfortable, right at home. He hit the pipe again, then once more, before returning it to the cupboard. 

When he returned to the room, Rich had taken his place on the edge of the bed and was sitting with his legs spread wide, his cock and balls hanging over the edge of the mattress. Gabriel had moved to th
e small table and was sitting there with his open briefcase. Beside the briefcase was a glass of water and a blue oval pill. That, Donny guessed, was the old man’s drug of choice: Viagra.

“Donny, you’re back. And you’re still wearing your jeans
? I thought you were going to make yourself comfortable.”

Donny looked at Rich and Rich gave a quick nod. Without hesitation, Donny undid his belt, unbuttoned, unzipped, and let his jeans fall to the floor. He kicked off his shoes with the tangle of his pants and shoved
them with his foot to the edge of the other bed. He stood in his underwear.

“Well, at least that’s a little better,” said Gabriel.

“What’s next?” asked Donny, not to either one in particular, just to the open air. The speed was making him anxious and he was ready to get on with whatever he had to do to earn his money.

“Relax, Donny. I just want to talk to you two boys for a while,” said Gabriel. “But
first, take off that ungodly underwear.”

Donny looked down, wondering what was wrong with his underwear
. He took them off slowly, self-consciously, feeling the old man’s eyes on him. Gabriel took the pill from the table and swallowed it, washing it down with a hit of the scotch. Donny sat on the other bed, across from Rich, and spread his legs in the same fashion. Both of them now only in T-shirts, with Gabriel, triangulating them, fully dressed, waiting for his Viagra to kick in.

The small talk continued. Gabriel asked
questions about their lives while he stared at their meat. After a few minutes, the old man began to massage his own crotch. He did it absentmindedly, not missing a question. Donny felt like they were being interviewed for a job. In a way, they were.

The questions got more personal, digging into their histories, uncovering painful memories. Donny cou
ld tell the more they revealed the harder Gabriel was getting. Donny was beginning to wonder if this was the whole gig, if this was all they had to do, when Gabriel opened up his briefcase and took out a white plastic lobster bib, then carefully tied it around his neck. The old man got down on the floor, grunting with stiffness and age, and sat directly between them. He opened the fly on his dress pants, took out his own cock, and started to jerk it.

“Get hard, gentlemen,” was all he said.

Donny looked at Big Rich, but Rich was already doing his best, massaging his cock with his eyes closed. So Donny did the same. All three of them, now, were silent, tugging away.

Donny opened his eyes and saw the old man watching
, his eyes darting back and forth between Big Rich and himself. He looked at him there on the floor, lobster bib around his neck, not caring that Donny watched him. He saw the old man’s tongue flicking between his lips like some kind of hideous reptile. Donny was repulsed.

Gabriel commanded, “When you’re ready, cum on my face.”

Donny closed his eyes again, trying to think of something, somewhere else. His sexuality had become so confused, so oversaturated, so polluted, that he didn’t know what to fantasize about anymore. He just kept pulling at his cock, hoping he could get there. Images flashed through his mind, but none of them stuck. A fast montage of pornography—unfocused, spliced, and flickering. It was useless. He thought about the girl he lost his virginity to, a junior-high sweetheart named Becky. He thought about the woman across the street he used to watch mow her lawn. He’d watched her from his bedroom on sunny Saturday afternoons and masturbated while he focused on her tanned brown cleavage. These were the images that never failed him, usually. They weren’t even getting him hard.

He
opened his eyes to see Big Rich achieving his goal and the old man making whimpering sounds beneath him. Donny reached for his underwear and jeans and started to dress.

“So, w
ould you boys like to watch TV while we order some food? I believe they have HBO.” Gabriel was already on the phone to room service, taking the liberty of ordering for them.

“Yeah, turn it on,
Donny; I gotta use the shitter again.”

Donny picked up the remote and tried to
figure out how to work the TV. He wanted to get back to the pipe in the bathroom too, and, as he did every time after turning a trick, he wanted a hit of dope. He watched Big Rich grab both their jackets before heading to the bathroom and said, “Save me some.”

Big Rich shut the door.

While Donny waited for Rich to come out of the bathroom, Gabriel went back to his briefcase and took out a tablet and a portable keyboard. He plugged the keyboard into the tablet and told Donny, “I’m just going to answer a few emails. You relax, son, until I’m ready again. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Donny shrugged,
said okay, and pretended to be absorbed in the TV. Big Rich seemed to take forever in there, finding a vein, hitting the pipe, doing whatever the hell he was doing. Donny flipped through the channels without ever noticing what was on. From the corner of his eye, he watched Gabriel completely absorbed in his work. The old man typed quickly and lightly without pause and kept his own eyes on the tablet before him.

Do
nny finally asked, “Um, Gabriel,” he’d almost forgotten the man’s name, “what kind of lawyer are you?”

Gabriel looked up, smiled with his yellowed teeth and said, “Criminal.” He said it in a tone that made Donny feel foolish for asking, then, seeing the boy’s response, added, “Is there any other kind?”

Donny didn’t answer. He didn’t like the man’s smile.

Big Rich finally came out of the bathroom. He whispered to Donny that he’d left a spoon under the sink and to be careful, cause there was blow in it. Donny knew that mean
t be careful not to spill it, careful to take it all, not to be careful with his life.

The evening continued in the same fashion. The boys stripping from the waist, Gabriel and the
lobster bib, then the boys taking turns in the bathroom. Gabriel didn’t seem to mind the bathroom trips, but eventually, when the boys began to nod uncontrollably, he said he had to head home.

“I trust that you’ll be out by check-out time, Richard?”

“Yeah, of course,” mumbled Big Rich.

Gabriel stopped and surveyed the room.
“Oh, and be sure that there’s no paraphernalia left behind in that bathroom. Donny, it was a pleasure. Perhaps we can do this again sometime.”

Before Donny could say anything, the door swung shut and he and Big Rich were alone with their drugs. 

***

Dustin had been in his room, their room, drawing. He was waiting up,
wide-awake. What else would he do? He was always awake. Ever since his release from prison, he’d vowed to not spend another minute unconscious. He was trying to get back the time he’d lost.

The room was covered in paper, u
nfinished drawings that would remain as they were: pencil-etched visions from his darkest places. Dustin drew picture after picture of human misery, torture, and immeasurable grief. He knew he had no real talent. The drawings were just a way for him to unseat some of the sickness that lingered in his damaged head. They weren’t therapeutic; they catalyzed whatever viciousness rattled his brain. He drew to validate those thoughts, bring them to the fore. They weren’t art; they were wishes.

It was nearly four
a.m. when he heard the car pull into the driveway. He pulled back the blind and saw Gabriel getting out of the Bentley. Empty-handed, as usual. He wondered why the old fuck wouldn’t just die already, but something in his head reminded him to think of the big picture. Dustin wanted everything, and he was close to getting it. He needed that old fuck alive. Dustin looked down at the drawing in his hand—a man being pulled apart by horses; drawn and quartered, he thought they called it. The horses looked child-drawn and the man’s limbs were out of proportion. He crumbled up the picture, threw it to the floor with the others, and marched to the top of the stairs.

He stood there, perched, waiting for the front door to open. It did. He watched Gabriel enter, quiet as a burglar, and creep toward the kitchen. When the old man was midway across the cold tile floor, Dustin yelled, “Do you really expect me to sit up here all night with nothing?”

“I’m sorry,” said Gabriel. “I didn’t want to wake you. I was working late.”

“I don’t give a fuck where you
were, just like you don’t give a fuck about me.”

“That’s not true, Dustin.”

“Bullshit, that’s what you are. Fuckin’ bullshit. Go to wherever you hide that shit and give me what I need.
Then
we can talk about what an asshole you are.”

“Dustin, I’m sorry, it couldn’t be helped. I had
work to do.”

“I know you were working, I checked your email, you son-of-a-bitch. Stop holding out and bring that shit up here—
before
you make your goddamn drink.”

Gabriel felt he had no choice. It was too late to put up a fight. He did what he was told. He walked through the kitchen to his office in the back
and opened a closet door. In it there was a steel safe bolted snuggly to the ground. He punched in the combination and the thick steel door swung open. Inside, among papers and pictures, a small amount of cash, his passport, and an unused handgun, was a plastic box. He removed the box, opened it, and took out a plastic baggie that bulged with glassy shards of methamphetamine. Dustin’s dinner.

Gabriel moved to his desk and shook out a couple of the larger pieces before returning the bag and box to the safe.
The speed was sold to him by one of his former clients, a murderous biker named Bear. Gabriel felt an affinity for the biker, not because he’d helped him out of so many legal quagmires, not because they’d developed a strange friendship, but because they were both outsiders. Outside of both society and their peer groups. He’d been dealing with the biker for years and his client had assured him that he’d find no better speed anywhere, including the SFPD evidence room, Gabriel’s other source. Gabriel told Bear he would purchase all he had.

Gabriel carried the shards of speed upstairs cradled on a
glossy magazine cover. He walked into the bedroom and found Dustin, naked save for his silk robe, waiting with a pipe in his hand. He handed over the magazine without word and watched Dustin smile and wave him off.

Gabriel glanced
once more at Dustin, hunched gargoyle-like with a lighter in one hand and a glass pipe in the other, before quietly closing the bedroom door.

Chapter 4

“Dude, you’re burning the sheet.”

Donny opened his eyes and saw the cigarette he’d been smoking laying on top of the bed.
The smell of burning cotton rose with the thin wisp of smoke.

“Shit.”
Donny brushed his hand at the small oval hole that’d been burning into the top of the linen sheet. “I guess this is only a three-hundred and ninety-nine thread-count sheet now, huh?”

“Watch what you’re doing. We don’t
wanna rack up a bunch of charges on our golden goose.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,”
Donny said as he dropped his butt into an empty soda can. “How long we gonna stay here?”

“Till
check-out time, like he said.”

“You have enough downtown?”

“Not really. Enough for a small wake-up for each of us.”

“Did he pay you?”

“Of course he paid me. Fuck, Donny, what do you think I am, his wife?”

“Is it too late to cop?”

“Maybe.”

Donny could see Rich thinking about it, working it over in his head, thinking about the time, how many hours till daylight, what they had left. The seed had been planted.

Rich said, “We could try. If not, then we can call Xavier any time after nine.”

“What time is it now?
”

Big Rich looked at his phone.
“Four-thirty A.M. I can try to call Jose, he delivers late.”

“Try,” said Donny.

Rich tried and then tried again. No response.

“Looks like we’re fucked till morning.”

“I’ll live, I guess.”

“You think you’ll make it, high as fuck, sitting in a goddamn four-hundred-dollar-a-night suite?”
Big Rich teased as he went back to what he was doing, whatever it was. He was trying to put the idea of copping out of his mind. He sat at the table going through the contents of his wallet and pockets, searching, organizing, tweaking.

The TV flickered on silently and Donny listened as showers in other rooms started as other guests rose early for flights and business meetings. The muted noise of regular life depressed him.

“Rich?”

“Yeah,” said Rich, keeping his head pointed down
toward the table.

“You gay?”

“What?”

“You know, are you? It’s not like it wouldn’t help with this shit we do.”

“Fuck no, Donny. I ain’t no fag. Shit, I’ve got a girlfriend and a kid.”

Donny was truly astonished to hear it. He had no idea.
“Really?”

“Yeah, really.
They’re up in Oregon; my little girl is two fuckin’ years old.”

“How come you’re not with them?”

“What do you think? Fuckin’ drugs, man. I’ll be with ‘em again. Just gotta get off of this shit.”

Donny thought about that for a moment.
The comment seemed outrageous. He didn’t know anyone who had gotten off of this shit. Rich had never mentioned getting clean before. It was something they never talked about. Donny had thought about it, but it seemed pointless to ever bring up. Not when you’re working so hard to stay high, at least. He couldn’t imagine Big Rich cleaning up. It was hard enough to imagine himself cleaning up, getting off the street. It was an insurmountable dream. He let the subject drop before it even got started.

About a half-an-
hour ticked by in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts, Rich still digging through his pockets and Donny still flipping channels on the TV. Then Rich said, “Fuck it, let’s do the wake-up now and call Xavier at nine.”

***

Gabriel Thaxton sat in his favorite chair in the living room of his palace, smack dab in the center of his world. The TV was off and the only sound was the muffled scurry of Dustin’s chaotic movements in the bedroom above. Gabriel had a fresh scotch in one hand, and in the other a framed photo of his wife and daughter.

The picture was old, when Judy was still viable and pretty, when she still acted as his wife. The photo was taken at his daughter
’s graduation from law school. He’d taken it himself. Samantha had gone to Stanford and had moved on into environmental work, burying herself in tort cases against big corporations. She had little cause to call on her father for advice. His daughter’s absence from his life didn’t disturb him much. That is what children did, they left the nest. But what did disturb him were his daughter’s willful attempts to keep him from contacting his grandson.

He loved little Jason,
but hadn’t seen him in over two years. He probably wasn’t so little anymore. He felt like the boy could be his prodigy. A natural heir.

The last time he’d seen Ja
son, the boy was only four years old. It was when he and Judy’s marriage had started to break apart. A Christmas dinner, no, maybe it was Thanksgiving. He could recall bringing the boy a gift, but, then again, he always showered the boy with gifts at every opportunity. Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4
th
of July, even Arbor Day, if he had the chance. He remembered an argument starting at the dinner table. Insults being thrown shortly before food was. His daughter stood up and had said it was enough, that her son didn’t need to see his grandparents fighting like a couple of teenagers. He tried to remember what the argument was about. He couldn’t recall.

Gabriel drained the scotch, glanced at the clock, and decided to take a shower. He walked up the stair
s slowly, feeling his age. He stood for a minute looking at the oak door of the master bedroom and decided not to use the shower in there. Why disturb Dustin? He continued down the hallway, took two towels from the linen closet, and sequestered himself in the guest bathroom.

He turned on the faucets and undressed while the water got hot. When he could see steam, he opened the glass shower door and climbed in. He
stood for a moment, head down, letting the spray of hot water hit the back of his neck, and did his best not to think about Judy and Samantha, about Jason. He tried to think only about the hot water.

He heard the bathroom door open.

“Hello? Dustin?”

The door shut again and he could see Dustin’s cloudy form through the shower glass.

The glass door opened. Dustin was naked.

“I’m ready to talk now,” he said.

***

It was 9:30
in the morning and the boys stood on the corner of O’Farrell and Jones. They were cold and stood hugging the wall where the sunlight heated the brick.

“
Fuckin’ Xavier. Said he’d be fifteen minutes. What time is it?” said Big Rich.

Donny told him.

“Fuckin’ Xavier. I coulda called Jose by now. Fuck.”

“Is that him?” said Donny.

“No.”

A few more minutes crawled by.

“Is that him?”

“No.”

“Shit. What kind of car does he drive again?”

“I told you
. It’s a white Toyota, a piece of shit.”

“That was a white Toyota.”

“That was not a Toyota, Donny, you don’t know shit. I’m calling him again.”

Just as Rich pulled his cell phone from his pocket
, a white Toyota pulled up to the curb.

Ri
ch smiled. “It’s about time.” His tone instantly changed, brightened.

He
hopped into the passenger seat and left Donny waiting at the curb. The car pulled away, heading around the block while they did their brief exchange, and returned to the same spot. Rich climbed out, grinning, and the two boys walked briskly down dirty sidewalks toward Rich’s hotel.

“We
gotta get a phone today,” said Rich.

“I have a phone,” said Donny.

“No, I mean one that can take video.”

“Oh, well, mine is, like, ten years old.
It doesn’t even take pictures.”

“Donny, they didn’t even have cell phones ten years ago,” said Rich.

Donny was sure that they did, but didn’t feel like arguing his point.

“
Skye has one. He’s got an iPhone,” said Donny. Skye was the most tech-savvy person that Donny knew. He didn’t like the kid, but Skye always seemed to have the latest stuff.

“He
ain’t lending that shit out,” said Rich.

“What’s wrong with yours? It’s almost new.”

“It’s fucked up, the video won’t work. It always says something about no memory.”

“It’s like you:
no memory.”

Rich said, “Fuck you.” B
ut he was smiling. They both were. They felt good. The mid-morning sun had warmed up the streets and they had enough dope to last them the day. Maybe enough so that they wouldn’t have to work the corner that night.

They decided to get high at Donny’s place instead of Rich’s
, another hobbled hotel in the Tenderloin only a few blocks from Big Rich’s and, by Donny’s estimation, a little closer to where they were now.

“Besides,” said Donny, “they don’t
hit you up for a fucking guest-deposit.”

“What are you b
itching about? You never pay at my place. A lot of places do it now. They think it keeps out the undesirables.”

“I don’t think that shit is even legal. They just do it to ext
ort money from the people that’re dealing.”

“Yeah, well, call the Better Business Bureau.”

They reached Donny’s run-down excuse for a hotel and buzzed to be let in. This time, there was no one at the front desk and Donny told Rich to stand by the inside gate, the one separating the lobby from the stairs leading to the rest of the hotel. Donny stood in front of the plexi-glass and did his best to block the view of the video camera with his scrawny frame. He hit the buzzer on the desk. They heard it sound somewhere in the office in back. The door behind Big Rich vibrated and the boys ran upstairs before the clerk could see on the monitor who came in. Donny’s hotel didn’t allow visitors at all.

Once inside the room, the boys restarted the same ritual. Spoons, water, bits of cigarette filter, lighters, then dope.
When they were ready, they both crowded under a table lamp near Donny’s bed and began to look for a spot to hit-up. They rolled up their sleeves and pant-legs and pushed, pulled, and flexed. Every day the search for a new place to stick the needle became more difficult. Within minutes both had found a vein and they lit smokes and sat back to enjoy the euphoria.

Big Rich toyed
with his cell. “You think that’s all I need is a memory thingy?”

“A chip?
Yeah, fuckin’ Radio Shack, man. It’s easy, I’ll show you.”

“You think this is
gonna work?”

“The video?
Yeah, we’ll test it out first.”

“No, the plan, with the old man.”

“I dunno. It’s your plan. Is it really such a dangerous thing to be outed as a faggot in a city as gay as this?”

“He’s got a family.
A life. I think he’ll pay.
How much
I don’t know.”

“What’re
you thinkin’, like, ten thousand?”

“Shit, at least.
Wait’ll you see his house. He drives a Bentley, for fuck’s sake. I say ten thousand a piece, then, like maybe, five-hundred a week.”

“Why would he do that, keep paying
us? Seems like it would be cheaper just to tell his wife.”

“That he likes young boys? C’mon
, since when do any of these freaks that come down to the corner want the world to know that shit. This Gabriel is paranoid, too.”

“Maybe he’s careful.”

“Paranoid.”

“When you were in the bathroom at the Nik
ko, I asked what kind of lawyer he was.”

“And?”

“He said criminal.”

“So?
” said Rich.

“So, what if he knows what to do when someone pulls this
kinda shit on him?”

“Trust me
. He doesn’t know shit. If he had any sense about him, he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.”

They sat for
a while as their highs subsided and watched the shadows of the day move across the squalid room. Big Rich dropped a cigarette into a half-full soda can and said, “Donny, I’m out of smokes. Can you do me a favor and run down to the liquor store and grab me some?”

“Shit, your
legs broken?”

“I don’t
wanna sneak back in. Please? I’ll buy you a pack.”

That tipped the scales. “Okay,” said Donny.