The Ninth Man (21 page)

Taking a deep breath, Ed straightened up, deliberately unclenched his fists and turned to look at me. He tried to smile but didn’t quite make it.

“Shortly after I got back from Kenya this year, I went out for drinks with the friend who’d lived across the street from us—he’d just found out he’d gotten a permanent transfer to Honolulu and wanted to celebrate. We got a little drunk, and the subject of Glenn and me came up. He apparently assumed I knew what had really happened and said how sorry he was, and how he’d always wondered why I hadn’t gone out and killed those bastards for what they did to Glenn.”

He rubbed one hand, hard, across his forehead.

“It was like I’d been kicked in the stomach, but I asked him to tell me everything he knew, and he did. He’d gotten the story in bits and pieces from the guys involved, but it was all there.

“The minute I was out the front door that last weekend, Rholfing came up with the idea of having a ‘building party’ that same night. They’d never all been particularly chummy with one another, from what I knew, but I think Rholfing saw it as a good chance to get at Glenn—and so did everybody else.

“Naturally, Glenn was invited, but I’m sure he didn’t want to go. He knew what kind of creeps those sons-of-bitches were. He knew every one of them was just dying to get their hands on him. But he never wanted to offend anyone, so he went. Like I said, he hated to be alone.

“Rholfing made punch for the party. Every one of those motherfucking pigs knew Glenn was an alcoholic.
Every one of them!
”

His face was flushed, and it was obvious he was maintaining his control only with effort. I sat listening, not wanting to hear but desperate to know. His eyes slowly moved to my face. They were misted, and I was embarrassed for him.

“They spiked the punch,” he said, his voice autumn-leaf dry. “They knew Glenn was an alcoholic, and they spiked the punch! They thought it would be ‘cute’ to get him drunk!”

He swiped at his eyes with one hand and gave me a quick, embarrassed smile.

“Sorry, Dick,” he said, with a short sniff. “I know this sounds pretty melodramatic, but I haven’t talked about this to another living soul—ever. Can you believe that?”

I believed it, and nodded.

Ed sat quietly for another moment then continued.

“Anyway,” he said, “they got him drunk. Really drunk—which isn’t all that difficult with an alcoholic who hasn’t had a drink in over a year. Then, when he was drunk, and they were all drunk, the party turned into an orgy. Glenn passed out, and they gang-raped him. Every one of those goddamned faggots had a turn at him—even that cunt Rholfing somehow got it up long enough to fuck him.”

He paused just long enough to take a long, deep breath, like a swimmer going down for a long dive.

“Glenn had Big Kano with him—sort of for a security blanket, I guess. The dog must have started barking once they started in on Glenn, and one of those pricks put the dog out onto the back porch. Somehow, he went down the stairs and out into the street. A car hit him.

“The squeal of the car’s brakes and Big Kano’s yelp brought Glenn to. He went wild. He fought his way out of the apartment and down to the street. When he found Big Kano dead, he just turned and went back into our apartment and took out the gun I’d bought for protection and shot himself. I guess he thought I wouldn’t understand, that I wouldn’t love him anymore.”

Sweat was running down Ed’s forehead, but he didn’t seem to notice. His voice was still almost conversational, but I could feel his anguish. He said nothing for quite a while, and I watched him regain his composure.

“The house I rented in Nairobi was crawling with bugs and rats, and I hired a guy who worked in the Ministry of Agriculture and moonlighted as a fumigator. They still use pesticides the US banned a long time ago, and they still use cyanide for fumigation and rodent control. It did the trick.

“A few days after I moved back in, I found a small canister of cyanide sitting on the floor of a closet. I called the guy who’d fumigated the house, and he seemed very unconcerned. There wasn’t very much in the can, and he suggested I keep it in case the rats came back.

“So, I put what was in it into an old prescription medicine bottle I had, clearly labeled it ‘cyanide,’ put it under the sink in the kitchen, and forgot about it. When I came back to the States, it got packed with my other things and shipped back here. Customs didn’t say a thing. I’d nearly forgotten I still had it, until…” He shrugged.

“When I found out what had happened to Glenn, I went into a kind of shock, and it was only as I was coming out of it that the rage started to build. I knew I wanted to kill them, but it was still all just an internalized feeling, and I didn’t have any real plans how to actually do it.

“One night, I forced myself to go out to the bars, and who should I see but Alan Rogers. The minute I saw him, it was as though reality stopped, and I was watching a movie. I’ve never had a feeling like it before, or since, thank God.

“He was fairly well drunk, and when he saw me staring at him, he came over and started putting the make on me. He didn’t even recognize me at first, and when he did, it didn’t seem to mean anything to him. It had been three years, of course, so he probably assumed—as apparently they all did—that either I didn’t know what had really happened, or that I’d just shrugged it off. After all, it hadn’t been that big of a deal for them. Why should it have been for me?

“Then he took out a bottle of amyl and asked me if I wanted a hit. I heard myself telling him no and watched him, in slow motion, unscrew the cap, close one nostril with an index finger, and take a snort so deep I thought he would inhale the liquid right out of the bottle.

“That’s when I got the idea. But, you know, I still don’t know whether I would have gone through with it if he hadn’t called me. I think now part of me gave him my number as a test. He flunked.”

He looked at me again, and the corners of his mouth made subtle little quivering motions, as if he were trying again to smile and just couldn’t make it.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? But if I hadn’t given him my number, I wouldn’t have met you. Funny how things work out.”

Neither of us really thought it was.

We sat side-by-side on the bed. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch him, part of me wanted to get up and run—not because I was afraid of him but because I was afraid of me.

After an indeterminate amount of time, which might have been seconds or minutes, Ed finally spoke again.

“How much of this do you really want to know?”

“All of it,” I said.

He nodded.

“The very next morning, before I left for work, Rogers called and asked me over. I told him I had to go out of town for a few days, which I did, and that I didn’t feel right about our getting together, with him having a lover, and he laughed and said, ‘It sure won’t be the first time, and besides, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt me.’

“That did it. I told him I’d talk to him when I got back, and he said, ‘Okay, I’ll be just as hot then.’ Can you believe that? I was giving him every chance to save his miserable life, even hating him as I did, and he blew it.”

He sat there, shaking his head and staring at the floor where his wallet had been.

“I had a two-day trip to San Francisco scheduled. Somehow, I’d managed to get through my work assignments without anyone noticing anything, but inside I was a real basket case. Even then, I was thinking that, if Rogers would lay off, I might be able to avoid doing what I knew had to be done.

“I had a little free time in San Francisco, and I went out shopping.” he continued. “I went to a porno shop and bought three bottles of amyl. I found an army surplus gas mask and some good rubber gloves, and bought them, too. When I got home, I had two messages on my machine from Rogers.

“I dumped the amyl out of two of the three bottles I’d bought and rinsed the bottles thoroughly. I took the cyanide, the gas mask, gloves, solvent, and the bottles to the roof of my apartment building.

“I put on the gas mask and dropped a little of the powdered cyanide into the bottle then carefully poured in acid solution and immediately capped the bottles tight. Instant gas chamber. It never occurred to me I could very well have killed
myself
if I’d made a mistake while doing all this, and I guess at the time it wouldn’t really have mattered. All I could think about was Glenn and what they had done to him.

“Actually, I didn’t realize until later that the combination of cyanide and sulfuric acid could have—and probably should have—blown the amyl bottle up and killed me in the process. But I was incredibly lucky, and it didn’t. Maybe it was in the proportions of the cyanide to the acid, maybe the fact that I made such a small batch…

“Anyway, somebody up there was watching over me, and I never had a problem.

“Rogers called me the next day and asked me over. He said his lover would be gone all day. The sonofabitch had a lover, and he was still a fucking whore!

“When I got there, he answered the door stark naked. He didn’t give a shit about his lover, he didn’t give a shit about me—all he wanted was another trick. The fucker didn’t even say hello; he just yanked his head toward the bedroom, and I followed him in.”

Ed stopped, stared at the towel in his lap for a moment. Once again, he gave a long, slow sigh before continuing.

“Anyway, I reached into my pocket, took out the amyl bottle, uncapped it carefully, held my breath, and shoved the bottle tightly under one of his nostrils. He reached up and closed the other nostril with his index finger and took a real deep hit. Then he just fell over backwards, and he was dead in seconds.

“I put the cap back on the bottle, being careful not to spill any on my skin, and moved him around on the bed so it looked like he was sleeping, pulled the covers over him, and started looking for the slip of paper I had given him with my phone number. When I couldn’t find it, I left and didn’t look back.

“I thought later about photos or anything that might connect me to any of them, or any of them to each other, or to the building. I guess Rogers didn’t have any, but I made it a point to find out with the others.”

He sat up straight, rolled his shoulders up and back, then rotated his neck in a slow circle to relieve some of the tension in his muscles. I was still numb and don’t remember moving, other than my head, from the moment he’d started to talk.

“I won’t go into detail with the rest,” he said, “except to say that having done it once, I had to keep going. I tracked them down, one by one.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “I didn’t care if anybody caught me or not. I didn’t care if the cyanide killed me. I didn’t care about anything, really.”

He turned to face me, and his expression was one I’m not sure how to describe, but I saw something there that nearly tore my heart out.

“Then I met you, and all of a sudden, I cared about something again. I’d gotten everyone by then but Rholfing. Maybe I’d held him off until last because he was so repulsive to me I couldn’t stand the thought of even looking at him.

“When I got to his place, I really thought the cops might be there, that he knew why I’d come. But he started chattering away about how he’d just talked to you, and how surprised you’d be when you found out he remembered about the building and everybody who’d lived there. He knew Bobby McDermott was dead, of course, but I realized he didn’t know everyone else was, too, and that he didn’t connect me with McDermott’s death at all.

“He just stood there, babbling and looking like Madame Butterfly in that stupid kimono. I couldn’t believe it. I stared at him and then brought out the amyl bottle. When he saw it, his eyes lit up and he said, ‘Ooooh, candy!’ and practically grabbed it out of my hand.

“I started to say something, but he had the bottle uncapped and shoved under his nose before I could say a word. He closed one nostril with his thumb and took a deep snort. I’ll never forget the surprised look on his face.

“I managed to grab the bottle out of his hand as he fell and kept it from sloshing all over the room. I knew you’d be over right away, so I split.”

There was another pause, during which we both sat there not looking at one another.

“I went home, opened every window, put on the gloves, and opened the bottle under the water in the toilet bowl. It was practically empty anyway. I put the cap back on underwater then flushed the toilet three or four times and that was it. I scrubbed out both the empty amyl bottles—I’d used the first one completely—put them in with the trash, and took it to the dumpster. Then I came back inside and called you.

“And here we are.”

I forced myself to turn and face him.

“And here we are,” I repeated. “The next question is, what do we do now?”

Ed got up from the bed and sat on the edge of the dresser, facing me.

“That,” he said, bracing himself with his palms flat on the dresser top, “is up to you. But before you decide, I want you to know three things.

“One is that I had every intention of turning myself in to the police once they were all dead. I still will, if that’s what you think I should do. I had decided that long before I met you.

“But, damn it, I have met you, and now I don’t want to lose you.

“The second thing—and I can only hope you believe me—is that, other than the first night we met, I’ve never lied to you. Hedged a couple of times, maybe, like when you asked me if I knew any of those bastards, and I avoided giving you an answer at all. I’m sure as hell not proud of what I’ve done, but I could never have forgiven myself or let Glenn go if I hadn’t done it.

“Third, and most important of all, is that everything I told you the other night about us is true. I loved Glenn more than life itself, but Glenn is gone, and the last thing I could do for him I’ve done. You’re here now, and I’ve only begun to realize how important you’ve become to me. Please believe that.
Please
.”

I believed it.

“And I wouldn’t be sitting here, spilling my guts out to you, if I didn’t think you feel pretty much the same way about me. We aren’t two starry-eyed kids. We’re two adult men who just happen to be gay and who, I think, can grow to need and love one another.”