Taking In Strays (15 page)

Ralph confirmed his hope as he retorted, “Don’t worry? I’ve met Parker. He could lift trucks!”

Donny heard Ralph leave as he closed the space between himself and a man he knew only as Mr. Peterson. “Mr. Peterson, what brings you to my lovely new home? More importantly, how did you find out where I live?”

The man flicked at imaginary dust on one lapel and replied, “I’m here to take you to your father. He wants a meeting.”

“Meeting?” Donny tried not to let that hurt, but it was impossible. His father, or at least Mr. Peterson, was treating him like an errant business associate. “Did he think of some more insults, or does he want me to give up the family name, now?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

The absent
‘sir’
, was a definite point being made. The man wanted Donny to understand his position. That omission told Donny that he wasn’t considered the boss’s son, and therefore, he was now beneath Mr. Peterson. Donny tried to keep his temper as he thought about his response. Peterson was acting as if he would roll over and go with him. Donny thought he understood why his father wanted to see him.

“Who told you where I was living?”

“Sources,” the man replied stiffly.

“Did someone see me? The mayor’s son: gay and working gutting fish. That can’t be good for father’s image.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” Peterson agreed. “If you’ll come with me…?”

Donny’s mind was already clambering, like a drunk offered a bottle of whiskey, for a chance to get back into the good life. It was almost impossible to throttle it back and ask calmly, “He wants me to stop claiming that I’m gay, right? He wants me to act like the poster perfect son to get him votes.”

“It’s only a matter of time before you’re found,” Peterson warned him. “Your life will be published everywhere and put in the worst possible light.” His lip lifted in a sneer as he added, “If that’s possible.”

“And once everyone knows the mayor’s son guts fish and fucks men, father’s prospects for re-election with go up in a puff of pink smoke,” Donny chuckled darkly. “It might almost be worth it.”

“I assure you that it won’t,” Peterson replied.

Donny frowned. “Is that a threat?”

“If you interpret it that way,” Peterson replied.

“You sound like a lawyer,” Donny retorted. “Well, tell Daddy that I’m not going to his meeting. He disowned me because I decided to stop playing the part of the perfect son. I have people in my life now who accept me for who I really am.”

“Like Dan Parker?” Peterson asked with a lifted eyebrow.

Donny went cold. “How do you know about him?”

“Once I discovered where you were living, it was easy to find out who put you here,” Peterson replied. “It would be very easy to pursue avenues that might call into question Mr. Parker’s motives. Careers can be ruined over very small infractions. Protecting your lover from those kinds of accusations is as easy as a trip to the Mayor’s mansion. A short meeting can’t be so abhorrent that you’re willing to risk Parker’s career?”

It was a relief to know that they didn’t know about Peter, but Dan was in definite danger. The man had done so much for Donny that he couldn’t chance any threat. Donny was well prepared to cut off his own nose to spite his face, though. He turned and said, “If my father wants to talk to me, I‘ll skip taking a shower.”

Peterson walked to catch up to Donny as Donny headed back the way he had come. “You can’t mean to go to the mansion looking and smelling like this!”

“I’ll feel like a shower after I see my father, so I might as well not waste water,” Donny explained. “That’s rule thirty-eight in this apartment building.”

Peterson didn’t argue after that, even when Donny climbed into the back seat of his expensive black car and sprawled wearily on his white leather seats. There was a driver, as if Peterson thought it was beneath him to drive his own car, but Peterson didn’t get in the well appointed backseat with its electronics and fold out bar. Instead, he sat in the front passenger seat and exuded a definite aura of anger.

The driver snorted at the smell and glanced in the rear view mirror at Donny. Donny gave a short wave, even though he didn’t know the man, and then closed his eyes to take a nap as they pulled onto the street. It seemed a long drive and probably was. The climb from barely eking out a living to the homes of the elite was a winding route with gates and guards at the end of it.

Peterson was silent even as they drove up to the back entrance of the mansion. When they came to a stop he said simply, “We’re here.”

Donny sat up, feeling stiff and disgusting. There was some satisfaction in that as he climbed out of the car and leaned back until his spine cracked. A few aides were hovering, all in black suites and looking like mobsters given a task beneath their pay grade. Donny was certain that security was tighter than a drum. They wouldn’t want this visit getting out to anyone. That thought made him suddenly nervous.

Until now, Donny had always felt untouchable, aware that his father had a vicious side where it concerned his opponents, but imagining himself immune to it by virtue of being the man’s only son. What if that immunization had ended? What if that hard core ruthlessness of his father was about to make Donny its next target?

Donny’s cockiness banked sharply. He reviewed his latest decisions and found them suddenly childish and not thought out. Instead of attempting to piss off his father, he should have considered ways of calming the man’s fears while staying true to his commitment to stay out of the closet. The man felt threatened. Donny had done everything possible to confirm the man’s belief that he was at risk for a class A scandal.

The mansion had dark, glossy marble floors, deep reddish paint choices, and solid leather furniture. Grand staircases and thick columns reinforced a feeling of masculinity, wealth, and power. Donny’s own room, up the staircase and to the right, had been an opulent suite full of the latest technology. The life of the pampered son of the mayor, with his own staff of guards, assistants, and housekeepers, seemed almost a dream, now.

“He didn’t throw out my clothes, did he?” Donny found himself asking Peterson.

Peterson could say a lot with a perfectly raised eyebrow. That eyebrow was claiming a victory, however small, as he replied, “He hasn’t bothered cleaning out your room, so I imagine they are still there.”

“Can I shower and change?”

“Yes. Burton will stay with you.”

Burton was a hulking man with a uni-brow and a square jaw. His voice though was surprisingly light and formal. “Proceed, sir.”

Donny felt a weary need to shower and curl up in his own bed at the top of those stairs. Let his father talk to him tomorrow. He wondered if his father had considered that weariness as part of his strategy. A person was more likely to agree to anything when he was exhausted.

As Donny climbed the seemingly endless stairs and then went through the door of his old room, he heard the man following close behind him say, “I have a lot of respect for you, sir, for coming out to your father.”

Donny looked at the man in surprise. “You’re gay?”

The man shook his head and looked at the carpet as he admitted, “My daughter. She kept it a secret. She didn’t think I would accept the truth. When she died in a car accident her lover came and told me…She wanted to bury my daughter, you see? She wanted to be a part of that the same way she had been a part of my daughter’s life.” The man looked choked up now. He swallowed heavily and added, “I wouldn’t have understood. I would have been angry. After she died, none of the bullshit that I thought was suddenly that important. My daughter’s partner and I are close, now. She can’t replace my Ginny, but she makes the loss less. So, even though things hit the fan between you and your father, it’s better than keeping secrets.”

Sometimes, Donny wasn’t so sure of that, but the man’s saddened expression made him believe, just then, that it was. “I’m sorry about your daughter,” was all Donny could find to say. The man nodded, as if that were enough, but Donny didn’t think so. He wasn’t sure there was anything that he could say to make a father’s loss seem less devastating.

Donny actually felt homesick as he went through drawers and closets and pulled out clothing. He took a suitcase from under the bed and began filling it. “Any objections?”

The man grunted, “No, but this confirms that you aren’t willing to listen to what your father has to say.”

Donny made a sour expression. “My father has made it clear to me how he feels about homosexuals. I don’t think time to reflect has changed his mind about that. That means that he’s either going to ask me to pretend not to be gay or to move to South America.”

When the man didn’t reply, Donny nodded firmly, suspicions confirmed.

Donny hid a few mementoes in among the clothing, a few photos of himself and his old cronies, and whatever cash he had negligently left about the room as if it hadn’t been important enough to pick up and put away.

The man tossed a hundred dollar bill into the mix. Donny started. “What’s that for?”

The man shrugged. “Call it atonement, or whatever you want. Hopefully, Peterson will let you take the bag.”

“Thanks…” Donny tried to remember the man’s full name and couldn’t. Had he known this man before being tossed out? Was he one of the many men and women who had worked to make his life run smoothly? Was he one of those people that he had always failed to notice or thank? Donny really didn’t know.

“I’m sorry if I was ever a dick to you,” Donny said uncertainly.

The man snorted. “You didn’t single me out, so that was something at least.” He cleared his throat apologetically. “You better take your shower, sir.”

Donny sighed as he went into the opulent bathroom. The tile alone was worth a small fortune, let alone the sunken whirlpool tub and the shower with its multi-spray nozzles. It was pure bliss the drop his filthy clothes and step into the hot water of the shower. He spent far longer than was necessary and definitely needed the polite rap on the door to bring him back to the fact that his skin was turning pink from being scrubbed and soaked repeatedly.

It was good to dress in his own clothes. Dry cleaned, pressed, and smelling expensive, they were soft on his skin and fit him perfectly. Black jeans, dark gray turtleneck sweater, and Italian leather gray shoes made him look almost Goth as he spiked his black hair with his fingers and some hair gel.

“Sir?” the man interrupted again. “Your father is waiting.”

Looking at himself in the mirror, Donny thought that he looked as if he were going out to a fashionable funeral. He hoped that funeral didn’t turn out to be his own.

Donny opened the door. His
guard
looked pleased and then led the way, not back to Mr. Peterson, but further along the upper gallery until they reached a little used study. Donny’s father was waiting there; drink in hand, papers on his desk in leather portfolios, and an impatient scowl on his face.

“About time,” his father grumbled and motioned to a leather chair in front of his desk.

Donny shook his head and went to lean on the desk, instead, staring down at his father. “I’m your son, not one of your clients. I don’t need you to pitch politics to me. I grew up knowing that we’re surrounded by sharks.”

His father took a long drink, ice rattling, and the smell of scotch drifting over to Donny, and then he said, “Then I’ll give you your options and you will impress me with your intelligence by choosing the best one.”

“Best for me or for you?”

“That depends.”

Donny looked down at the portfolios, opened up on the desk. One read like a severance package, full of legal language against breaking confidentiality. The other held plane tickets and traveler’s checks, and a deed to a bungalow in a place that was probably so remote that no one would likely be able to discover it.

“I don’t get a third option?” Donny asked and it was sadness rather than sarcasm that colored his voice.

“You’re lucky there are two,” his father growled. His face was an unlovely red color. He had knocked back more than few drinks before Donny’s arrival. He had black hair like Donny, but Donny often thought that he had an uncanny resemblance to Winston Churchill. Instead of the man’s affable expression, though, his father managed to have one more suited to a mafia don. It chilled Donny and made him wonder if his father had ever tipped that ruthless nature of his towards something more violent. Was his third option in an invisible portfolio? Did it contain an order for cement shoes and a trip to a remote lake?

“I think I told you that I was gay just to piss you off,” Donny admitted as he looked through the portfollios without really seeing them.

“You’re not gay?” There was hope in that voice. His father leaned forward. His hand twitching as if he longed to grab Donny’s hand and beg him to make it true.

Donny could feel sorry for him, but it was a faint emotion beneath a more powerful sadness and disappointment. He realized that something inside of him had hoped that his father had wanted to apologize and to accept him and ask him to come home.

Donny sighed and stepped back, hands digging into his pockets as he hunched over his aching heart. This wasn’t going to be his home ever again. “I can’t tell you that. It would be a lie.” The words came from a dry mouth, as if Donny was uttering his own death sentence.

His father sat back heavily and tossed back another drink, his hand tight on the glass. When he put the empty glass onto the table with a thunk!, he appeared to have erased all of his emotions. His eyes on Donny were flat, like a shark before it strikes. “Choose,” he insisted simply.

“I just did,” Donny replied after clearing his throat. He stepped back. “I’m not an employee that you can order around. I’m your son. I’m not going to give interviews and shout that I’m gay and gutting fish from the top of a building, so signing a
shut up
statement is a waste of time. I’m also not going to run away and hide like I have some terrible disease that I should be ashamed of. I am Donny Kirkpatrick, your gay son. If your political career can’t survive that, then the world is a lot worse than I thought.”