Exposure

by Todd Young

  “Ran off to Dallas more like it.”

  “You think so?”

  Rafe nodded.

  “Nobody’s heard from her since your party?”

  “If they have, they haven’t told me.”

  “Are you angry about it?”

  “Shit, yes.”

  “Because she left you?”

  “Left me?”

  “You’re her boyfriend, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, you know that. Well …”

  “You broke up?”

  “I’m not saying that.” He frowned, concentrated on slicing the tomato, and then spoke again. “She wouldn’t have left me. She wanted a baby.”

  “Marriage and the whole biz.”

  “I guess so.”

  Jack chewed the inside of his cheek, and then watched on as Rafe opened the grill.

  “I grill them,” he said. “I have a sandwich maker, but I prefer them grilled.”

  “Have you spoken to Sissy’s family?”

  “No.”

  “It might be wise to. Perhaps they know where she’s gone.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Jack hesitated. “They have a notice up at the school with Sissy’s photo on it.”

  “Really?”

  “Have you seen Sissy?”

  “I see. Well, no. I haven’t.”

  “Was she your age?”

  “Nineteen. Going on twenty. I only just turned eighteen.”

  “On the day of your party?”

  “That’s it.”

  “And that was Saturday, the Saturday before last.”

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t seem overly concerned about it.”

  “I wasn’t in love with her, if that’s what you’re trying to imply. She was just …”

  “A girl?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you keen on girls?”

  “Oh, please.”

  Jack raised his hands in surrender. “It’s just … well, I’m not keen on girls, and if you’re like that … if you want somebody to talk to.”

  Rafe winced. A moment later, there were tears in his eyes. He looked up at Jack beseechingly, but kept his mouth closed. “Are you saying you’re a fag?” he suddenly snapped.

  “That’s it.”

  “Right.”

  9

  They ate at the table in the family room. Jack asked about school, if Rafe had any plans for college. Rafe shook his head. So Jack turned the conversation to sports, and Rafe said he’d played water polo at school, that he’d enjoyed it, but didn’t play anymore.

  “Was Sissy interested in sports?”

  “Shit, no. She was interested in sex.”

  “Is it possible you got her pregnant?”

  Rafe shook his head, then glanced outside. “We’d only been going out for a month or so.”

  “And you didn’t like her?”

  “Like her? She was my girlfriend.”

  “Sure. But you …?”

  “What?”

  “Never had sex with her?”

  Rafe hung his head and Jack felt a wave of compassion wash over him.

  “It isn’t the end of the world—being gay.”

  “Is it that obvious, is it?” Rafe said. He glanced at Jack with tears in his eyes, then covered his face with his hands and released a broken sob. “Shit!”

  Jack reached for his shoulder and gripped it, and Rafe began to cry in earnest, his face in his hands, his shoulders wracked.

  “Come on,” he said eventually. He got up and walked into the kitchen where he found some paper towels. He tore two of them off and handed them to Rafe, who after a moment or so blew his nose.

  A car horn sounded in the drive.

  “Shit!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mike.”

  “You going somewhere?”

  “No. He always blows the horn. All my friends do. To let me know they’re here.”

  Jack nodded.

  Rafe scraped his chair backwards, but no sooner had he done so than they heard Mike’s voice in the hall, the front door open.

  “Rafe!” He sounded angry. “Rafe!”

  “Oh, fuck. What does he want now?”

  “Rafe! Oh, there you are. I just spoke to Connor and he said—” Seeing Jack, he stopped short. “Who are you?”

  “Jack Markman.”

  “The private investigator. I told you. On the phone.”

  “Right. Yeah. Just didn’t think. Didn’t think you were serious.” He turned his head on one side and studied Jack. “What’s with the scars?”

  “A wreck.”

  “Oh, right.” He nodded definitively, his jaw open. “Anyway, I spoke to Connor, and he said you tried to break up with Sissy, that you wanted to.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “No. Well, I would have had her back. I mean, fuck, I loved that girl. And now, well … she’s gone.” He turned to Jack. “You think something’s happened to her?”

  “Happened to her?”

  “Rape. Murder. Shit, I don’t know. You’re the P.I.”

  “Perhaps I could ask you a few questions.”

  “Sit down, Mike.”

  He took a seat at the table along with Rafe and Jack.

  “How long have you known Sissy?”

  “Oh, since grade school.”

  “And you’re in love with her? Is that the story?”

  “Rafe stole her from me, didn’t you, Rafe? We’ve been friends for the longest time, but shit, Rafe.”

  “I didn’t steal her from you. She came to me. She said she wanted to make you jealous, and I went along with it. I didn’t think she’d get serious about me, but she did, and we’re still friends. I mean, I’m still your friend.”

  He was looking at him with such earnest devotion that Jack had to figure it was more than that. And Mike seemed aware of it. His face was one of distaste, his brown eyes deep and dark.

  “Don’t get like that about me all over again. I know what you’re like.”

  Rafe lowered his eyes.

  “Did Sissy ever speak about her plans for the future?”

  “Sure she did. She wanted to be a famous singer, or an actress—someone like Madonna.”

  Jack nodded.

  “She was good too. You should have seen her act. She could get a boy to do anything. Jake Harlington. Boy. When I told him what he had to do to get her, he just about shit his pants.”

  “Don’t tell that story.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “That’s illegal, that sort of thing.”

  “Still, it was funny. When I cracked him, he screamed like a girl.”

  Rafe glanced away, staring into the hall.

  “Was she planning on going to Hollywood?” Jack said.

  “Hollywood?”

  “To get into the entertainment industry?”

  “No—at least I never heard her mention it. We figure she’s in Dallas. Unless she’s dead. Unless somebody killed her.” He turned his eyes on Rafe. “I have a theory that Rafe might have done it.”

  “Not this.”

  “He was the last to see her alive, and they argued that night. Connor heard a lot of what was said and so did Caleb. But it’s Beau you really need to speak to. He was the last to leave the party, the last before Sissy, that is, if she ever left, but he won’t say nothing.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “I can take you over there now if you like. He might speak to you.”

  10

  Mike’s Ford sedan was parked in the drive. He expected Jack to get into it and ride with him, but since the wreck, Jack hadn’t been riding with anyone. He knew the wreck had been his fault, but he wasn’t about to trust another person.

  Mike moved his car onto the grass strip beside the road. They rode in Jack’s old Lincoln, sitting three abreast in the front seat, Rafe in the middle, his warm thigh pressed against Jack’s.

  As they were pulling out of the d
riveway Mike said, “I’m trying to get the police involved in this, but they won’t even come and talk to Rafe.”

  Jack nodded.

  Beau lived in a trailer park south of the river. The trailer harked back to the nineteen fifties, silver and bullet-shaped. It hadn’t been hauled by a car in a long time.

  Jack pulled up in a cloud of dust and Mike hopped out.

  “Beau! Beau!” he called.

  “Blow the horn,” Rafe said.

  Jack blew the horn and the door to the trailer opened, a young man Rafe’s age appeared in a white tank top and black and red boxer shorts. They crowded into the trailer. Inside it was stifling.

  “My mom’s at work,” Beau said.

  “This is Jack—Jack Markman,” Mike began. “He’s a private investigator. He’s trying to find Sissy. Or work out what happened to her.”

  Beau looked frightened.

  “He wants to know what you heard that night. Rafe and Sissy’s argument. I know some of it, but you never have spoken about it, Beau, and we need you to do that.”

  In the cabin, Mike was imposing, six foot something and broad.

  “Shit. Rafe can tell it, I figure. It was his argument. If he wants to.”

  Rafe hesitated. “I was so drunk I don’t remember.”

  Mike frowned. “You never said that before.”

  “So I can tell it, Rafe?”

  Rafe offered him an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  Beau paused uncertainly.

  “Go on,” Mike said. “The detective’s here to hear it.”

  “Well … Rafe …”

  Rafe winced.

  “Rafe …”

  Rafe put his head in his hands.

  “He said some mighty shocking things. Sissy wanted to have sex with him. They were in the hayloft. She tried to kiss him. He pushed her back. She tried to kiss him. He pushed her back. Then she tried to touch him. Down there. His penis and testicles. He said if she did, if she touched him there, he’d kill her.”

  Mike whistled and threw a sidelong glance at Rafe.

  “Well, she did touch him. That was the upshot of it. I don’t remember all the ins and outs of the argument, but she managed to get a hand on his groin. Then he said, as sweet as you like, “Stay behind, and I’ll give you what you deserve.”

  “Bullshit, Beau!” Rafe was on his feet. “That’s simply bullshit!”

  “It sounds like you.”

  “That wasn’t how it happened.”

  “What? You didn’t promise her sex?” Beau said.

  “No. No, I did.”

  “Or you meant something else,” Mike said.

  “Can you let up on me already?”

  “No. You’re hiding something."

  Rafe sighed.

  Jack wanted to know how Beau had heard all of this. “I mean—if they were up in the hayloft.”

  “Oh, I was up there too. I was lying back in the hay. Jennifer Langley left me there. She left me cold.”

  Jack nodded. It occurred to him that Rafe most likely had killed Sissy. It sounded as though he had. He glanced at him, and then stared. He was chewing a corner of his lower lip, his eyes fixed absent-mindedly on the floor. He felt a before unknown yearning for the boy, a yearning to comfort and protect. He supposed if the police became involved he could do his best to throw them off the scent, but it didn’t look good for Rafe. Even so, he could hardly believe he’d done it.

  Beau said his mom would be home soon and they ought to leave. Jack got up and followed Mike out of the door. Then he turned to see Rafe, standing in the shadowy trailer, talking to Beau. He was gesturing wildly.

  11

  On the car ride home, Mike leaned across Rafe and said, “Beau had more to say, I think. If Rafe hadn’t been there, he might have said more.”

  Jack nodded sagely.

  Rafe reached for his groin and adjusted his cock and balls. Jack supposed a jockstrap could get uncomfortable, everything held so tightly. And it hadn’t exactly looked his size.

  They rode in silence for minutes, Jack acutely aware of Rafe’s warm thigh.

  “Have you seen Martha?” Rafe suddenly said.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her.”

  “And what did she have to say?”

  “She thinks you’re innocent.”

  “Of course I’m innocent. As if I’m going to go and kill anyone.”

  Jack had to wonder. He looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but still.

  He pulled into Rafe’s drive only to find an F50 parked behind Rafe’s car. Caleb and Judge were sitting on the front porch. One of them had a blue T-shirt on with the phrase, The law is the law. He guessed this was Judge.

  “Where you been?” Caleb said. He was the one without the T-shirt.

  “Over to see Beau,” Mike replied. “He had some very interesting things to say about our friend here.”

  “You’re not still on that trip,” Judge said.

  “Trip?”

  “Trying to point the finger at Rafe.”

  Mike screwed his lips to one side.

  “You are. I can tell.”

  “This is Jack,” Rafe said. “Jack Markman. He’s a private investigator.”

  “Yeah. We heard,” Caleb said. “You hired him on account of Sissy. Well, she’d be pleased. All this fuss being made. She wanted to be a star, and now she is one.”

  “Don’t pay too much attention to Mike,” Judge said. He got up and dusted his jeans off. “He was jealous of Rafe and Sissy. Thinks Rafe stole his girl. But Rafey … well, Rafey is Rafey. He wouldn’t steal anyone’s girl.”

  Rafe winced.

  They wandered inside and out to the family room.

  “You ought to question Judge and Caleb about that night,” Mike said.

  “I’ll have to question everyone, everyone who was at the party.”

  “I don’t know nothing,” Judge said.

  “I know there was some sort of argument. And we found Sissy’s sweater in the barn.”

  Mike lifted his head. “Her sweater?”

  “A pink one.”

  “That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “You both knew Sissy well?” Jack asked.

  They nodded.

  “And when did you last see her?”

  “Around eleven p.m.,” Caleb said.

  “Maybe a bit later. I rode home with Ewan Parker at about eleven thirty.”

  Jack nodded. “Have you ever known her to run off like this before?”

  “Run off? Sure. She’s been to Dallas twice.”

  “So that’s the most likely explanation, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess so.”

  “No,” Mike said. “I would have heard from her. She would have come back to me by now.”

  “Well, if she is dead,” Caleb said, “then where is the body?”

  “Maybe it’s in the river.”

  “In the river?”

  “We should go and look.”

  “You want to go and look?” Judge said to Jack.

  “I guess we could.”

  They trailed out the back door and into the yard. An old path led from beside the barn, over a green hill and then down a steep bank to the river. They turned right and skirted the water, apparently looking for signs of a body. Mike found a big stick for himself, and then one for everyone else, a stick designed to poke and prod at detritus on the bank. At first, they took it seriously, but after five minutes or so Mike was the only one searching the riverside effectively. He poked and prodded at every suspicious item, even the weeds. Within ten minutes they’d reached the bridge over Sebring Lane, where the water of the river churned in a whirlpool.

  Jack stopped. It wasn’t possible to go any further, not unless they climbed up onto Sebring Lane and over the other side of the bridge. He glanced at Mike, who looked hot and bothered, and realized not even he wanted to climb the steep bank.

  “We ought to go back to the tree. Go swimmi
ng,” Judge said.

  Rafe and Caleb nodded, but Mike looked uncertain. Even so, they trailed back up the river to a water gum with a long, thick bough rising at a thirty degree angle over the stream.

  The boys began to strip off, and Jack figured they were going skinny-dipping. He stepped out of his shoes and unbuttoned his shirt. But then, as he was about to take his trousers off, realized that Judge and Caleb and Mike had only stripped down to their underwear: Mike to a pair of tighty-whities, Judge to a pair of green boxer briefs with white piping, Caleb to a pair of orange bikini briefs. Rafe was standing uncertainly, naked but for his trousers.

  “Don’t laugh,” he said, “but I’m wearing a jockstrap.”

  The boys shrugged their shoulders.

  After being constricted by Rafe’s thong last night, Jack had decided to go without underwear today. “I’ve got nothing on,” he said. “I’ll have to go in naked.”

  This was met with silence.

  He unbuttoned his trousers, slipped them off, and was all at once aware of how full and floppy his cock was. He knew it was large, but the boys’ eyes locked on it, Rafe’s seeming to goggle.

  Judge reached the tree first and Caleb followed. They walked up the bough on hands and feet and then jumped from the top. Mike followed. Then Rafe. And then, finally, Jack. From the top it looked a long way down to the water, and he was afraid of hitting the bottom, but the pool was deep as it turned out.

  They splashed and laughed and every now and then got out and climbed the tree again. On the bank, Rafe’s eyes were on Jack’s cock time and time again. He took shy glances at it, and then climbed the tree in front of Jack, his naked ass on display. Jack formed a plan. The fourth or fifth time up the tree branch, with Rafe directly in front of him, Jack reached forward and tapped one of his feet. Just as Rafe lifted his left foot, Jack tapped his right foot. He fell, splayed legged, and landed hard on his cock and balls with an, “Umph!” With his thighs wrapped around the branch, his ass was open, the pink rose of his hole on display.

  Jack took a chance. Figured he could risk it. Thought Rafe might like it. He reached forward and pressed the back of his fingers against Rafe’s hole, so that the knuckle of his middle finger was nestled there. Rafe’s body writhed. He groaned. And then got up unsteadily.

  Jack thought of doing it again, of making him fall again, but he held back and glanced down at the water. No one had seen, he thought. Then he realized Judge was behind him. Judge grinned.