“You come near me, I’ll jump.”
“Don’t, Liz.”
“I’ve botched it all. I’ve failed.”
“It’s not the end.”
“What’s left for me now?”
“There’s paying for your actions.”
“That’s worse than death.”
“So you bail out instead of facing the consequences?”
“Don’t preach to me.”
“I’m not preaching. I’m talking karma.”
“You take your cosmic consciousness and shove it.”
“Liz—”
But my voice was taken by the wind, unheard by Elizabeth Anne Carlini-Kingsley. She had thrown herself over the bluff onto the craggy rocks below. I moaned and shook my head. Then I started to cry.
Some moments later, through the sound of the wind I heard John Lough calling out weakly. He’d only been wounded and was playing dead to save himself. “You’d better call me an ambulance,” he said.
I resisted the obvious retort.
That’s when the Abigail police finally came running across the moonlit lawn in response to Branco’s call from Boston.
20
COMB-OUT
THE NEXT MORNING I WAS BACK IN THE SHOP working again, as if the events of the past week had been an extended television series, instead of so-called real life. Nicole had offered me some time off, but I refused. My clients always come first … sometimes.
Laurett was in my styling chair, where I was finishing her hair for a special memorial service that afternoon for Dan Doherty, one that she’d personally organized.
“Will you come later?” she asked.
“I think I’ve had enough church for a while.”
“It won’t be like that other one, Vannos.”
I shook my head no. “Thanks anyway.”
Lying on the top of my station, amidst the tools and bottles of my trade, was yet another, and I hoped the last, heart-shaped box of Le Jardin truffles. It had arrived by special courier, but I hadn’t opened it yet. I wasn’t worried about poison, since all the other chocolate that had mysteriously appeared during the past week had been fine. I just wasn’t interested. In fact, I was almost nauseated by the thought of chocolate. Perhaps my lifelong addiction to the stuff had finally been cured, and those extra pounds would now melt away easily.
Tobias, however, was eyeing the box, and I saw his little fingers twitching in anticipation of squishing each and every piece inside.
“Vannos,” said Laurett, “I apologize for being mad with you. I thought you were being too friendly with Miss Lisa. I never knew you were going after her.”
“It’s all right,” I replied. I couldn’t confess the truth to her—that I had naively befriended Liz Carlini, and had honestly tried to help her, though more out of propriety than real concern. I wondered if my hands would ever regain their purity after working on a murderess and one of her victims. They felt genetically altered.
Nicole strutted jauntily toward my station, leading the handsome Rafik, who’d been released from jail that morning.
“Look who’s back,” said Nicole.
“You can lower your bosom, doll.”
Rafik smiled broadly at me. “You are hero, eh?” he said with a wink.
“And you are ex-con, eh?” I said, imitating his accent and returning the gesture.
As I was removing the protective cape from Laurett’s shoulders, Rafik noticed the unopened box of chocolates sitting on top of my station.
“You don’t open my gift?”
“I’m trying to become slender and attractive.”
“I don’t care about your figure.” He said it ‘fig-goor.’ “I care that you are brave.” He put his arm around me and pulled me toward him. He fondled the extra weight around my waist, and I wished I were sleek, like him. He seemed to be enjoying it though.
I said, “Brave isn’t quite right, Rafik. It was all kind of an accident.”
Nicole interceded. “How can you say that, Stanley? It was all your chasing and prodding and hunting that finally got the mystery solved and got these two released from jail.”
“Sure-you’re-right,” said Laurett as she got up from the chair.
“Merci,” said Rafik. He gave one more squeeze, then let go of me.
To all of them I replied, “But it was John Lough’s statement that cleared everything up with the Abigail police last night. They sure didn’t want to believe my story.”
“Darling, it did all sound rather melodramatic,” said Nicole. “Especially the finale, with that leap from the cliff.”
I shook my head sadly. “Liz Carlini was a sick woman. At least she’s not tormented anymore.”
Laurett was admiring my fabulous work on her hair—a high-fashion updo and twist—while Tobias had already pulled the chocolate down from my station and was opening the box.
Nicole said, “You were lucky John Lough witnessed it all. At least he’s the kind of person the police listen to and believe.”
“But I wonder if he’ll ever recover from touching me. On top of that, he had to tell them the whole truth, which absolved me of any suspicion. He ended up saving a fairy, poor man.”
“Hardly poor,” said a familiar baritone voice behind me. It was Branco. He’d just come in from outside and had brought the scent of clean, cold winter air along with him. After some strained hellos with us ex-suspects and ex-prisoners, he said, “We got a hold of Prentiss Kingsley’s will this morning.”
“Finally had a good enough reason, eh, Lieutenant?”
Grunt. “According to the terms stated there, John Lough inherits Prentiss Kingsley’s share of the estate. The remainder stays in trust with the corporation.”
I clucked my tongue. “All of Liz Carlini’s intrigues were in vain.”
Laurett said, “What she was fearing the most, that’s what happened anyway.”
“Lieutenant,” I asked, “what was the deal with the Mary Phinney Trust? Was that in the will too?”
“It wasn’t, but it came out in John Lough’s story. Apparently the most recent Kingsley woman who owned the company had wanted a daughter. It took a long time, but when she finally had a child, it was a boy.”
“That was Prentiss Kingsley,” I interjected.
“Right,” said Branco with a little frown—a little frown that told me to keep quiet. “So she decided to adopt a daughter, and that was Mary Phinney.”
Since I already knew the facts, I felt compelled to finish the story Branco had started. “So when Helen Kingsley died, Mary Phinney was supposed to inherit everything, according to the tradition of the Kingsley daughter. But since she wasn’t a bloodline Kingsley, she got nothing, not even half.” I paused. “Right?”
Grunt. An approving one at least.
I continued, “So when Prentiss died, Mary hoped to get some of the estate back from Liz Carlini, since there was no more Kingsley bloodline business to contend with.”
“That was her theory,” said Branco. “But as I said, it went to John Lough.”
“And to his wife, Mary Phinney,” I added.
“What!” exclaimed Nicole.
Branco nodded. “He’s right.”
Laurett nodded. “I always knew there was something.”
Rafik nodded. “Americans.”
Tobias squashed a raspberry parfait truffle.
I said, “From John Lough’s perspective as a Good Samaritan, if he was a second-class Kingsley, then Mary Phinney was traveling in steerage. He probably married her out of guilt.”
Nicole asked, “But no one knew?”
Branco replied. “Who’s to say?”
I shook my head in wonderment. “Prentiss Kingsley never acknowledged his adopted sister, so his half brother married her. It gives new dimension to dysfunctional families.”
“What a mess,” said Nicole.
I added, “And with John Lough and Mary Phinney now at the helm, Gladys Gardner can return to her stodgy old ways, a reactionary’s dream c
ome true. Maybe the time for ultra-chic boutiques like Le Jardin is coming to an end.”
“Like me and my boy in Boston,” said Laurett. “We be leaving here soon to go to Baltimore. My sister is coming from Jamaica, so we all have a new beginning there.”
Rafik said, “Mebbee we go away too, Stani, en vacances, so I say thank-you. Yes?”
Gulp.
“I don’t know if I can get the time off, Rafik.”
Nicole piped in, “I’m sure it can be arranged.”
Rafik’s eyes twinkled with desire, and I wondered what new tricks he’d learned in prison.
Laurett whispered to me, “Honey, the man loves you.”
Stupidly, I looked at Branco for a cue. With that curious curl of his lip, he said, “Sounds like a good offer to me, especially someplace warm.”
I faced Rafik, who was still waiting for my answer.
“Sure,” I said.
“Bien.”
Then, after much hugging and good wishes, Laurett and Tobias left the shop. Even Branco gave Tobias a last farewell kiss on the cheek. Don’t ever wash there, boy.
Branco prepared to leave too, and I walked with him to the door.
“Lieutenant, there’s one thing I haven’t figured out.”
Branco turned. “What’s that?”
“Whose gun was in the candy box?”
“It was unregistered, but it was the same gun that killed Dan Doherty and Prentiss Kingsley and fired the shots at Liz Carlini’s house.”
“So it was the weapon Liz used for everything.”
Branco nodded. “And John Lough admitted last night that he was using his own gun.”
“The one from his desk at the factory?”
“Right. The same one we found down in the rocks near the Abigail house last night.”
I shook my head. “It’s still unbelievable to me that Liz Carlini did it all, the lengths she went to, just for money.”
With a knowing look, Branco said, “Her behavior had little to do with money. The woman was unbalanced.”
“Lieutenant, I think we finally agree on something.” Branco put on his hat and waved good-bye to Nicole and Rafik. Then leaned close to me and said three words, waggling a warning finger at each syllable.
“You play safe.”
“Yes, sir.”
And he walked out the door.
I went back to my station, where Nicole and Rafik were chatting. When I arrived, their conversation halted and they both looked at me with wide, guilty eyes. They’d obviously been exchanging notes on me. Nicole spoke quickly, as if to cover the lapse of sound, “What about Ruiko’s car?”
“My karma is working there, doll. Turns out she was going to have an engine overhaul anyway, but she couldn’t find a good mechanic in town. I actually did her a favor by driving the car out to Abigail, where Ben, the last trustworthy mechanic in New England, is going to do the work. Her insurance even covered the towing.”
“How nice,” she said. “Everything is settled. Now we can get back to a normal life around here.”
“To normal?” I said, then added a grunt, like Branco.
Nicole walked back to the front desk, leaving Rafik and me alone at my station. After a long gaze at each other, after our heartbeats had quickened and the background of the shop had receded, and there were just two people in the world, I heard myself say, “Let’s make plans.”
About ReQueered Tales
In the heady days of the late 1960s, when young people in many western countries were in the streets protesting for a new, more inclusive world, some of us were in libraries, coffee shops, communes, retreats, bedrooms and dens plotting something even more startling: literature—high brow and pulp—for an explicitly gay audience. Specifically, we were craving to see our gay lives—in the closet, in the open, in bars, in dire straits and in love—reflected in mystery stories, romance, paranormal and more. Hercule Poirot, that engaging effete Belgian creation of Agatha Christie might have been gay … Sherlock Holmes, to all intents and purposes, was one woman shy of gay ... but where were the genuine gay sleuths, where the reader need not read between the lines?
Beginning with Victor J Banis's "Man from C.A.M.P." pulps in the mid-60s—riotous romps spoofing the craze for James Bond spies—readers were suddenly being offered George Baxt's Pharoah Love, a black gay New York City detective, and a real turning point in Joseph Hansen's gay California insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter, whose world weary Raymond Chandleresque adventures sold strongly and have never been out of print.
Over the next three decades, gay storytelling grew strongly in niche and mainstream publishing ventures. Even with the huge public crisis—as AIDS descended on the gay community beginning in the early 1980s—gay fiction flourished. Stonewall Inn, Alyson Publications, and others nurtured authors and readers … until mainstream success seemed to come to a halt. While Lambda Literary Foundation had started to recognise work in annual awards about 1990, mainstream publishers began to have cold feet. And then, with the rise of ebooks in the new millennium which enabled a new self-publishing industry … there was both an avalanche of new talent coming to market and burying of print authors who did not cross the divide.
The result?
Perhaps forty years of gay fiction—and notably gay and lesbian mystery, detective and suspense fiction—has been teetering on the brink of obscurity. Orphaned works, orphaned authors, many living and some having passed away—with no one to make the case for their creations to be returned to print (and e-print!).
Until now. That is the mission of ReQueered Tales: to bring back to circulation this treasure trove of fantastic fiction which, for one reason or another, has fallen by the wayside. In an era of ebooks, everything of value ought to be accessible. For a new generation of readers, these mystery tales are full of insights into the gay world of the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. And for those of us who lived through the period, they are a delightful reminder of our youth and reflect some of our own struggles in growing up gay in those heady times.
We are honoured, here at ReQueered Tales, to be custodians shepherding back into circulation some of the best gay and lesbian fiction writing and hope to bring many volumes to the public, in modestly priced, accessible editions, worldwide, over the coming months and years.
So please join us on this adventure of discovery and rediscovery of the rich talents of writers of recent years as the PIs, cops and amateur sleuths battle forces of evil with fierceness, humour and sometimes a pinch of love.
The ReQueered Tales Team
Justene Adamec • Alexander Inglis • Matt Lubbers-Moore
More from ReQueered Tales
Steam by Jay B. Laws
San Francisco was once a city of music and laughter, of parties and bathhouses, when days held promise and nights, romance. But now something sinister haunts the streets and alleyways of San Francisco, something that crept in with the fog to seek a cruel revenge...
Flint, owner of a once thriving bathhouse, now ravaged by a disease that has no cure, gives himself over to the evil lurking in the steam. Dying men get tickets that say Admit One, hoping for release, only to be dragged into the maelstrom. David, a writer of gay porn, finds himself writing another kind of story. His friend Eddie disappears from his hospital bed, leaving slime and mold, then returns for David. Meanwhile, Bobby is searching for his lover, lost in the same horror.
This classic gay horror suspense tale by Jay B Laws finally returns to circulation. First published in 1991, at the height of the AIDS crisis, this allegory chronicles the early days of the epidemic. It features the glittery discos of the seventies and an ominous abandoned gay bathhouse, in what is now something of a time capsule. It was nominated for Best First Novel by the Lambda Literary Awards.
In this new edition, Jay's brother Gary D Laws provides context and reminiscence—as well as extensive quote from Jay Laws on what the author had in mind as he created this mini-masterpiece. Notable author Hal Bodner also pays tribute and
provides context for the era reflected: a 1980s that suddenly turned dark and dangerous but one in which contemporary readers may know only through movies and urban legends, something Bodner seeks to set aright.
Let's Get Criminal by Lev Raphael
A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery, Book 1 — Nick Hoffman has everything he has ever wanted: a good teaching job, a nice house, and a solid relationship with his lover, Stefan Borowski, a brilliant novelist at the State University of Michigan. But when Perry Cross shows up, Nick’s peace of mind is shattered. Not only does he have to share his office with the nefarious Perry, who managed to weasel his way into a tenured position without the right qualifications, he also discovers that Perry played a destructive role in Stefan’s past. When Perry turns up dead, Nick wonders if Stefan might be involved, while the campus police force is wondering the same about Nick.
Originally published in 1996, this first book in the Nick Hoffman Academic Mystery series is now back in print. This edition contains a 2019 foreword by the author.
A Body to Dye For by Grant Michaels
A Stan Kraychik Mystery, Book 1 — Stan “Vannos” Kraychik isn’t your everyday Boston hairdresser. Co-owner of Snips Salon with best bud (and occasional nemesis) Nicole, thought this day was an ordinary one. A delivery van backed into the salon’s rear driveway and accidentally spilled gallons of conditioner, leaving Stan (and hunky Roger) embracing in a gooey mess trying to staunch the flow, with little success as they slid and slipped with Nicole watching on with rolling eyes. Later Roger is found murdered.
Stan’s client, Calvin Redding, who owns the apartment where Roger's body was found, can’t explain why the body is dressed in little more than bowties. Enter Lieutenant Branco, dark, muscular, Italian, (straight) of Boston PD Homicide who immediately suspects everyone, especially Stan. In an attempt to clear his name, Stan travels to California, takes up mountain climbing, eavesdropping, spying, schmoozing, and a little bit of schtupping, all in an attempt to find the truth.
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