Second You Sin (22 page)

Center, and Al That Razz. I had a Subway Sundae with Verrazano Vanil a and Whip Me Cream.

“Maybe Rueben’s overdose wasn’t accidental,” Freddy said.

“Ansel told me he had enough heroin in him to kil three people,” I answered.

“Exactly. But Rueben was an experienced user, right? He would have known how much he could take.”

“You think he kil ed himself on purpose?”

“You knew him better than I did.” Freddy might not have eaten his pasta earlier, but he attacked his ice cream with a singleminded ferociousness not seen since
Jaws.

I thought for a moment. Rueben had been through a lot. He was a pretty tough customer. Yeah, he’d come to depend on Ansel , but so much so that he’d commit suicide over a single spat? I could see him storming out of Ansel ’s apartment, but only to intentional y overdose half a block away?

“It’s a stretch,” I admitted.

“So, if he didn’t kil
himself,
whether accidently or on purpose . . .”

“He was murdered?”

“Maybe Ansel was madder at Rueben than he led you to believe,” said Freddy, through a mouthful of cold heaven. “He could have kil ed Rueben.”

“Possible,” I said. “Or maybe Rueben’s death is related to the others.”

Freddy put down his spoon. Anytime he did that during dessert, I knew that meant he was about to say Something Important.

“That’s it”—he pointed his finger at me—“you’re getting out of the business
now.
”

“Rueben wasn’t kil ed on the job, Freddy.”

“No, but how many dead boys have to pile up before you figure out that you’re not exactly in the safest of professions?”

“People die al the time, Freddy. And we don’t even know that Rueben’s death is related to the others. Or that any of them are related at al .” Freddy’s jaw moved back and forth, but he didn’t say anything. I could see he was furious.

“Why the sudden freak out, anyway?” I asked. “You already knew about Brooklyn Roy and Sammy White Tee. Not to mention Randy. What makes Rueben’s death such a big deal for you?”

“Because I
knew
him, you idiot. I was just talking to him two days ago. This is al getting too close to home, Kevin. If anything happened to you . . .”

“Nothing’s going to—”

“I couldn’t take it, OK? If anything happened to you, I . . .” Freddy’s voice trailed off and he shook his head. “You’re the most important person in my life, you stupid asshole.” Freddy picked up his spoon and jabbed it angrily into his ice cream. But he didn’t eat.

I felt myself tearing up. Freddy wasn’t exactly the type to talk about his feelings. The flame between us burned out a long time ago, but the embers stil burned hot. We may not have been lovers, not anymore, but there was stil a lot of love between us.

Perhaps Freddy and I were going to spend the rest of our lives in some in-between state. Not quite lovers but more than friends. We needed a word for it. Frovers. Lends.

Maybe once we final y have equal marriage rights, we’l cal our spouses “husbands” or “wives” and reserve the word “partners” for couples like me and Freddy. ’Cause that’s what we felt like. Partners in crime.

Or was that al ?

I slid next to him on the banquette and put my head on his shoulder. He put an arm around me and stroked my hair. We sat like that for a few minutes.

Then he took his arm away and started eating again.

Whatever crisis or opportunity we might have awkwardly been heading toward had been averted. I scooted back to my bowl.

“OK, so we’re back to square one,” Freddy said.

“If we’re going to save your sorry ass, we better figure out if someone’s real y offing these boys.”

“Al righty then,” I said, happy to have the business of murder take our minds off the business of our questionable relationship. “Tony tel s me the first rule in any case is to ask ‘who benefits?’ ”

“From kil ing male hookers?”

I nodded.

“OK, I’l play. Let’s see . . . a pervert. Some homo Jack the Ripper. He gets off on kil ing pretty boys.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But wouldn’t you think he’d kil them during sex or something? If it’s a pervy thing, I mean.”

“What, I’m the expert on sex crimes now? I don’t know. Ask your boyfriend.”

I was pretty sure if I told Tony I thought someone was kil ing male sex workers, he’d handcuff me to my bed. But not in the fun I’m-putting-a-blindfold-on-you-and-you-have-to-guess-wheremy-lips-are-going-to-land-next kind of way. More like the you’re-not-leaving-this-house-until-you-promise-me-you’l never-hustle-again way.

No sense getting him worried just yet.

“Let me think about that,” I said. “Who else benefits from the death of working boys?”

“A closeted client who doesn’t want word to get out about his extracurricular activities? He hires a hooker, then offs him. It’s a one hundred percent guarantee of confidentiality, right?”

“Most of my clients are closeted,” I said. “None of them have tried to kil me.”

“Yet,” Freddy added reassuringly.

“It seems thin,” I told him.

“Maybe someone famous,” Freddy offered.

“Someone in the public eye with a lot to lose.”

“Being caught with a hooker doesn’t end your career. Just look at Hugh Grant.”

“No, I said someone
famous.
” Freddy drew out the word like I didn’t know what it meant.

“Hugh Grant is famous.”

“He is? Who is he?”

“A British actor.”

“Darling, the only British actor I care about is Robert Pattinson. He can suck on my neck any day.

Oh, and that guy who plays James Bond.”

“Daniel Craig.”

“Daniel Craig,”
Freddy sighed. “Now, there’s an English muffin I’d like to toast and butter. Talk about your nooks and crannies. Whoever managed to write cock and bal torture into a mainstream film like
Casino Royale
deserves an Academy Award.”

“We’re getting off track.”

“Right. Fine, so what do we have so far?”

“Jack the Ripper and Hugh Grant.”

“Hmmmm . . .” Freddy tilted his bowl to his mouth and slurped the last of his ice cream. I wondered if finishing mine could real y be made up for by forty-five minutes of aerobics.

“I know!” Freddy jumped in his seat like an excited third-grader with the right answer. “You!”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you benefit. So do al the other hustlers, right? Kil off your competition and whoever’s left standing gets to charge whatever he wants. It’s the law of supplies and Depends.”

“That’s ‘demands,’ not ‘Depends.’ Depends are a brand of adult diaper.”

“Like you never had a client who was into that.” Freddy sneered.

I considered Freddy’s suggestion. It didn’t strike me as much of a business model. “I don’t think we’re ever going to run out of boys who’l peddle their papayas for a couple of hundred bucks.”

“Wel , maybe it’s a war between pimps? Or some mob shakedown thing?”

That didn’t seem entirely impossible. But Randy worked for Mrs. Cherry, like I did. If she thought there was any real danger, she’d tel me. Wouldn’t she?

This was al getting to be too much for me to think about. Fuck my body-fat ratio. I took another spoonful of dessert. “This is giving me a headache,” I admitted.

“That’s just a brain freeze from your ice cream,” Freddy said. He reached over and grabbed my bowl. “Luckily, I’m immune. Let me finish it for you, darling. Wouldn’t want you to suffer.” Great. An hour of brainstorming and stil no leads.

And now, I didn’t even get to finish my ice cream.

This was shaping up to be a very depressing investigation.

22

Remembering

After Freddy and I finished our servings of sugar and fat, I went home and crashed. I woke up the next morning feeling tired and bloated.

Even though Freddy stole half my ice cream last night, I stil had to pay the price for eating the other half. So, despite being sore from yesterday’s torture session with the Marquis de Personal Training, I hit the gym and did forty-five excruciating minutes on the StairMaster. Not my favorite exercise machine, but it burns calories like a forest fire and gives you an ass you can bounce a quarter off of. Which is about the most you can do with a quarter these days, anyway.

Then it was back to my place for a protein drink, an Adderal , and a shower. I threw on a pair of baggy khaki pants, a tight long-sleeved Transformers Tshirt, and my white Keds. I wore a Levi’s jean jacket over the whole mess.

It was a volunteer day for me at The Stuff of Life. I got there a little early for my shift, so I stopped off to say hi to my friend Vicki, the volunteer coordinator there. Vicki was a smokin’ little dykette, with the looks and slicked-back pompadour of a pretty Elvis Presley. In her tight Lee jeans and untucked cowboy shirt, Vicki had the hot swagger of the sexy town mechanic who wipes the grease from her hands on her pants before she feels you up.

I always had to remind myself around her that I liked boys.

“Hey, cutie,” she said. “I like the T-shirt. ‘More than meets the eye,’ huh?”

“I hope so,” I answered. “How’re things here?”

“Business as usual. Money’s a little tight, but more people are coming in to volunteer. I guess they give how they can.”

“Who’s my crew today?”

Vicki checked a roster on her desk. “OK, this one may be a little tricky.”

“Shoot.”

“Work release candidates.”

Work release candidates were guys incarcerated for nonviolent crimes at one of the city’s many prisons. They were eligible to work nine-to-five jobs outside of the jail, but first they had to prove themselves under supervised conditions, like here.

This wouldn’t be my first time working with one of these groups.

“I can handle it,” I said.

“You with a bunch of guys locked up with only their right hands and each other for comfort on those dark and lonely nights? You’re gonna be like chum in the water, cupcake.”

“Naw, they’re mostly white-col ar criminals or first-time drug offenders. It’s not like
Oz.
”

“The Wizard of?”

“The HBO adults-only series. It’s a soap opera about male rape in prison. Stayed on the air for six years, so I guess there’s a bigger audience for situational homosexuality than you’d think.”

“Please, don’t al straight boys want to be held down and fucked ‘against their wil ’? I’ve pegged enough guys in col ege to know what I’m talking about.”

“‘Pegged’? Is that some lesbian thing?”

“You don’t know what ‘pegging’ is?” I shook my head. “It’s when a girl wears a strap-on and fucks a guy up the ass. It’s hot.”

“You fuck guys?”

“I’ve been known to dabble. Equal opportunity penetrator, if you know what I mean. But don’t spread it around. The Lesbo Police get kind of uppity about that kind of thing. I could lose my membership card. You’ve never been pegged?”

“Wel ,” I said, blushing, “I’ve never needed to. I mean, the guys I’m with don’t real y need the strap-on, right?”

“I’d peg you right here, right now.” Vicki winked.

“Cute little thing like you. Bet I could give it to you better than half the guys you’re with.”

“OK, ewww,” I said. “No offense.”

I actual y thought it could be kind of hot, but my life was complicated enough, thank you.

Vicki was too cool and confident to even acknowledge the rejection. “That show
Oz,
it sounds like
Bad Girls.
You know it?”

“No.”

“It’s an English show about a women’s prison.

Same basic thing, lots of wild prison action, but without the blokes. ‘Blokes.’ That’s English for ‘guys,’

you know.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Heh. And they say you can’t learn anything from watching TV.”

“That where you learned about pegging?”

“No, I learned about that on Dan Savage’s podcast. And, boy, am I grateful to him.” My lunch shift with the work release candidates went smooth and easy. They were an amiable group, just happy to be out of prison. No flirting whatsoever, but some of the guys locked up on drug charges were cute in a stoner kind of way.

BTW, it freaks me out that we imprison bright young people with their whole lives ahead of them for smoking weed. Real y? What’s wrong with this country?

After my shift, I headed to the hospital to check on Randy. Cody was back at his desk, and he smiled from one jumbo ear to the other.

“Hey, Kevin,” he cal ed. “It’s good to see you again.” An elaborate basket of fresh fruit sat at the nurses’ station courtesy of Mrs. Cherry.

“I see Mama’s been good to your crew again.” I pointed to the basket.

“She’s making sure we’re keeping a sharp eye on your friend,” he said. “Not that we wouldn’t anyway.

Practical y every nurse here is a straight woman or a gay guy. I couldn’t keep them out of Randy’s room with barbed wire. He sure is a fine-looking fel ow.”

“That he is.” I grinned back. “It’s nice to see Mrs.

Cherry watching out for him, though. And how about you? Any hot dates?”

“You kidding?” he said. “There are a mil ion incredible-looking men in New York. Sure, someone like you has a boyfriend. . . .”

“Semi-boyfriend,” I corrected.

“I’m sure your friend Randy has them lined up like bad singers at an
American Idol
audition. Me? Not hardly.”

“Don’t put yourself down,” I said.

“Plus, when would I meet someone, anyway? I work about a mil ion hours a week.”