Venetian Masks (21 page)

“Are you worried about something?” Jeff finally asked.

“Not yet. I think I probably have a couple more days. I hope so, anyway.”

“You told me you’d explain.”

“Not here. Come on.” Cleve surprised Jeff by paying for breakfast, but then he grinned at Jeff, acknowledging without words that it was Jeff’s money anyway.

They left the market square via a side street and then emerged across from the cathedral. One of the spires was covered in scaffolding, and several tour buses idled in front. “Where are we going?” Jeff asked, knowing Cleve wouldn’t answer.

And Cleve didn’t. He simply walked past the cathedral and up the street for about a block and then paused at a bus stop. The shops all around them sold religious supplies—and, for some reason, wine—and a nearby kiosk was doing a bustling business in votive candles.

When the bus rumbled to a stop in front of them, Jeff climbed obediently aboard, and Cleve paid again. They sat silently, winding their way through a quiet residential neighborhood where flowers bloomed brightly in window boxes and young children strolled down the sidewalk. They didn’t ride for long—maybe ten minutes—and they disembarked when the bus stopped next to a very long, high wall.

It was only after they stepped through an archway in the wall that Jeff realized where they were. “Do you have some kind of thing for cemeteries?” he asked. This one was huge, with endless rows of dark tombstones arrayed under tall, shady trees, and statues and little buildings scattered here and there.

“They’re peaceful. I like the idea of all these people tucked away and remembered by their loved ones.” Cleve seemed to choose a row at random and began to stroll slowly, Jeff at his side. “This one’s called Miragoj. Despite all the wars and shit, everyone’s buried here: Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, Jews.”

“I thought you didn’t know Zagreb.”

“Not well. But I’ve been here a couple times before. With Eddie,” he added, not looking at Jeff.

Jeff didn’t speak. The gravel crunched softly under their feet as they walked slowly down a slight slope. Cleve stopped at an especially big gravestone with a golden lion atop it. Whoever was buried there had died in 1903.

“My parents kicked me out when I was fifteen,” Cleve said. “You know that part. Mom’s religion said it’s a sin for one boy to love another, but not for a mother to stand by while her husband beats her son. I crashed with friends for a while. I… got by. But one day in January when it was really fucking cold, these guys I sort of knew said they were heading to Seattle. And I thought,
why not?
I’d never been out west.”

“Where are you from?” Jeff asked.

Cleve turned to smile at him. “Cleveland, of course. My legal name is Thomas, but nobody’s called me that since I left Ohio. Except—nobody.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“Cleve,” he responded firmly. “Tommy Prieto died twenty years ago.” He continued walking, turning a corner and then another, heading back to the edge of the cemetery. What looked like a blank wall on the street side was on this side a series of long arcades, each inset with complicated mosaics and large memorial stones.

It was a pretty place, Jeff decided. The flowers and candles looked sweet rather than morbid, and the grounds looked more like a park than a burial ground. He imagined ghosts silently promenading, and the thought didn’t frighten him at all.

This time Cleve stopped in one of the arcades, looking down on the rows of stones. “Seattle was okay. Wet. I was in a club one night and this guy was there. He seemed really old to me at the time, but he was probably younger than I am now. Bald, kind of… elegant, you know? He told me I was good-looking. He asked me if I wanted to be a model. I wasn’t stupid. Figured it was just another line, a way to get into my pants. But he gave me his card and I told him I’d think about it.”

Jeff trailed his hand along the smooth stone railing. “You called.”

“Yeah. Couple weeks later. I needed the cash. I wasn’t legal yet but Frank didn’t care. He had someone make fake papers for me. He made up that stupid name too: Max Palmer. Christ. And the stuff he had me do… at first it really was just modeling, like in jeans with no shirt on, or a bathing suit. Underwear. The nude stuff, the costumes, the videos, they didn’t come until a little later.”

He started walking again, leaving the arcade and heading deeper into the cemetery. They passed an ornate mausoleum, an old headstone topped by a stone violin, a newer one that resembled a piece of modern art. “You said you weren’t ashamed of the porn,” Jeff said.

“I’m not. Did what I had to and I was good at it. Didn’t hurt anyone. Hell, think of all the happiness I gave to my audience. And I didn’t—” He stopped and grabbed Jeff’s arm and, for the first time since they’d entered the cemetery, looked him in the eyes. “I didn’t fuck for money. I mean, I did, when the cameras were on. But when men offered to pay to have me to themselves, I always turned them down.”

Jeff wasn’t sure why this point was so important to Cleve, but it certainly seemed to be. Jeff nodded. “I get it. It’s not… it doesn’t bother me, if that makes a difference to you. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. You’re hot—why not take advantage of that?” He meant what he said, not only because he was no prude, but also because he couldn’t blame a kid for trying to capitalize on what few assets he had. However, Jeff also couldn’t help feeling jealous of all the men who had touched Cleve before him, all the ones who’d jerked off to him. And, to Jeff’s surprise, he was angry as well—pissed off that a teenager could be let loose into a world where adults only wanted to use him.

Cleve was looking intently at him, maybe trying to read this complex mixture of emotions. Then he let go of Jeff’s arm and continued walking. “I got to travel. All over the States, but sometimes internationally too. I loved that part. And I made pretty good money, but I spent it as soon as I earned it. I didn’t have a bank account, didn’t have a driver’s license, didn’t have papers that weren’t fake. Didn’t have the faintest fucking idea how to handle finances, and I wasn’t really thinking about the future—about
my
future.”

“You were a kid. Kids don’t think about their future.”

“I bet
you
did.”

Cleve was right. By the time he’d entered college, Jeff was almost obsessed with planning for himself, with creating a life that was safe, and secure, and predictable. That’s why he’d chosen computer science as a major—not because he had a passion for the subject but because it seemed like the surest ticket to a secure job. Now, he smiled wryly. “Yeah, but I’m a boring geek, remember?”

“Boring geeks rule the world, pal.” Cleve shoved his bicep gently. “And you’re not so boring. But I didn’t plan, and I didn’t exactly have a pension plan. And I got older.”

“Ancient.”

“For modeling, yeah. Nobody wants to wank to wrinkles and middle-aged spread. I worked hard to keep myself in good shape, but it was pretty clear that the clock was ticking. The shoots they were starting to offer me… weren’t what I wanted to be doing. I was pretty vanilla for a porn star. I was starting to feel a little panicky because, after porn, what kind of job was I gonna get?
Ride ’Em Hard
and
G.I. Jockstrap
don’t look all that impressive on a resume.”

A couple in their fifties passed them on the path, staring curiously as they walked by, and a younger couple—tourists—took photos of each other near a statue of an angel. “Want your picture together?” Cleve asked them.

“Oh yes, please!” answered the girl in a thick accent that sounded vaguely Scandinavian to Jeff. The boy handed Cleve his camera before slinging his arm around the girl’s shoulders. They both smiled widely for the shot and then thanked Cleve before strolling away.

“That reminds me,” Cleve said. “Did you ever hear from ass hat over those pics we took in Venice?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jeff replied and tried not to blush when he remembered what Kyle had written. “I think he was impressed.”

“Good.” Cleve looked a little smug, and for the first time, it occurred to Jeff that Cleve might be feeling a little jealous too. As far as Jeff knew, nobody had ever felt that way about him before. It was kind of pleasant, actually.

“So how’d you go from porn star to touring Zagreb with Eddie?” Jeff asked.

“Indirectly. Eddie was having a big private party at one of his clubs in LA. He sent word out through some of the photographers and producers, looking for talent. Men and women. He wanted a lot of pretty faces there. Some willing bodies too, but that was optional. All I cared about was I’d get seven hundred bucks for hanging out and pretending a bunch of old guys were fascinating. Only it turns out I caught Eddie’s eye instead.”

“Did he catch yours?”

Cleve paused for a few moments and then shrugged. “I guess. He’s not bad-looking, and I’ve always had a thing for blonds.” He reached over and tugged a lock of Jeff’s hair. “He was rich—really rich, fuck-you rich, where he didn’t have to prove to anyone how thick his wallet was. And he was sophisticated and he didn’t… he didn’t want to just take me into a room somewhere and fuck me, you know? He talked to me, like maybe he realized I had a brain too. And he asked me if I wanted to fly to Rome with him the next day. I said
Hell yeah!
”

They’d come to a little patch of grass with an iron bench. Jeff sat down, squinting up at Cleve. He couldn’t imagine himself leaving for Rome on a day’s notice. But then he’d come to Croatia nearly as impulsively, so maybe it wasn’t so inconceivable.

Cleve leaned up against a thick-trunked tree, stroking the crumbly bark with one hand. “After Rome it was Milan and then Paris and then… fuck, I don’t remember. Barcelona, I think. We’d go to clubs and fancy restaurants, and because I was with Eddie, nobody treated me like a dude who fucked for a living.”

“You got respect.”

“Yeah.” Cleve flashed him a quick look. “I guess so.”

“Didn’t you know he was a mobster? You’re not an idiot.”

“I knew he was into some illegal shit, but that’s nothing new in the industry. Drugs, whores, kiddie porn, whatever. I’d been looking the other way for years. I didn’t realize how deep he was in. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t care as long as it didn’t touch me. I don’t know. Wasn’t thinking things through at the time.” He turned sideways, the bright sun putting him in silhouette, and dropped his voice. “I think Eddie loved me, in his own way. Like the way he loved his Ferrari and his Picasso and his del Gesù violin. I liked being… valued. Even if it came at a price.”

A cold chill ran down Jeff’s spine. “What price?”

“Dunno. Freedom. Dignity. He’s a jealous fuck, a real control freak, and he used to hit me sometimes when he got pissed off. I’m bigger than him and twenty years younger, but I couldn’t hit back, could I? It was a power thing and he had all the power. Once he got drunk and shot at me. Lucky he was too drunk to aim.”

“Fuck.”

Cleve shrugged. “Wasn’t all bad. I got to travel a lot. He’s a busy guy, so I had a lotta time to myself. I’d read, get to really know the places we visited.” He placed his back against the tree trunk and slid to the ground, hunching his knees against his chest like a scared child. “I learned Italian, German, French. Not bad for a high school dropout from Cleveland.”

Jeff wanted to kneel beside him and gather him in his arms, but wasn’t sure Cleve wanted comforting. Jeff hadn’t been too keen on it himself in the past. When his parents or Kyle had tried to console him, he had become prickly, convincing himself that he didn’t deserve comforting, or maybe that accepting it was a sign of weakness.

“Eddie used to fuck around sometimes,” Cleve said quietly. “’Course, I wasn’t allowed to. But he’d bring home these kids, these starry-eyed boys, and I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Couple times he tried to get me to join them, and I said no, and at least he listened to that. We were in London—I’d been with Eddie for almost four years by then—and he came home one night with this boy who was maybe eighteen, nineteen. Pretty as fuck but trying to look tough, you know?”

Cleve’s voice had become so quiet that Jeff was having trouble hearing it, so despite his misgivings, he rose from the bench and sat beside him. He didn’t touch him, not quite, but their bodies were close enough for Jeff to feel Cleve’s heat.

“That kid stuck around for a couple days, running around the place mostly naked, getting high. Probably trying to steal shit too, I don’t know. I had my own room and I kept to myself. And then—I don’t know if the kid did something wrong or if Eddie was just in a bad fucking mood. But when he took out his gun that time, he wasn’t too drunk to miss.”

“Jesus,” Jeff said. He’d suspected something like this was coming, but it was still hard to hear.

Cleve twisted his neck to look at Jeff. His cheeks were damp with tears and his voice was hoarse, but he was obviously trying hard not to break down. “I
saw
him. Ran down the hall to see what was going on—stupid of me—and there was the kid on the floor, full of holes. He still had Eddie’s come wet on his face. Eddie was standing there with the gun in his hand and he turned and looked at me. Jeff, his face was… cool. Like a mask. But his fucking eyes—I swear it was like looking at the devil himself.” He let out a long, shaky breath and tipped his head against Jeff’s shoulder.

“What happened?” asked Jeff.

“Nothing. I walked back to my room. He never mentioned that kid to me, and I never said a word about it to him. But a few weeks later we were in Berlin and I took off. Didn’t plan it or anything. I had the clothes on my back, my passport, about a hundred euros—that’s it. I hopped on the next train and ended up in Prague. That was a year ago. I haven’t stopped moving since, not for very long.”

“Why didn’t you—why can’t you go to the cops?”

“Thought about it. But nothing sticks to him. You did your research, you know that. He buys people off and he has fancy lawyers and… I don’t know. I’m nobody. I bet he’d pin the murder on me—I was a jealous lover, right? And his goons would back him up. Or else he’d just kill me. Hell, he’d kill me for leaving him even if I wasn’t a witness to a murder.”