Swipe Right for Murder

by Derek Milman

  “He’s testing me,” I say. “Seeing if I’m one of them or not. There was a weird connection. He said he identified with… my pain.”

  “How would he know about all that?” says Jackson, curtly. “Intimate details about your life?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, getting goose bumps. “It was freaky.”

  Jackson looks over at Leo. “What bread crumbs?”

  “Well, there was the Stonewall stuff,” Leo says to me. “But he just did it again, fed you a piece of information about who they are.”

  I rub my eyes, not wanting to look at my phone again. “A bunch of lovers?”

  “An Army of Lovers Cannot Lose,” Leo corrects. “Do you know what that’s from? I’m reading about it right now.”

  We all gather round, reading off Leo’s phone.

  The phrase is taken from a leaflet, written anonymously, that was distributed at a gay pride march in New York in 1990. Back then gay men were dying from AIDS and the government was doing nothing about it. Meanwhile, anti-gay activists were going around saying Homosexuality is a disease, and AIDS is the cure.

  Gay people were being beaten in the streets, shunted off to the margins of society, watching their friends die, attending funeral after funeral, never knowing if they’d be next.

  The leaflet says fear is the greatest motivator.

  It talks about terrorizing oppressors into retreat.

  About rising up.

  I realize for the first time, reading this, that all these right-wing assholes are actually scared of gay people. All nonprocreative behavior threatens them. Birth control. Abortions. Any alternatives to the hetero-norm nuclear family. So they felt they needed to wage a war. Deny gay people their equal rights. Not treat them as human beings deserving of dignity and respect.

  Shit, they’re still doing it…

  There’s another Army of Lovers line: “We are an army of lovers because it is we who know what love is.” It’s saying gay people know more about love than anyone else because they’ve risked so much to have it: prejudice, bashings, bullying, banishment, disease, death.

  I keep reading. Here’s where I start to get even more upset:

  The leaflet talks about gay people being bullied by society into being silent, into hiding their rage with drugs, alcohol, suicide, conformity, and overachievement while repeatedly being told by straight people TO STOP OVERREACTING. STAY INVISIBLE.

  I’ve never been a particularly political person. Some kids at my school are. But something corrosive is rising up in my chest. I can taste it.

  It’s never been easy being gay—it’s not easy now… because things are regressing after years of progress. I can’t deny that; no one can deny that.

  “Rights are not given, they are taken by force if necessary…”

  “Straight people will not do this voluntarily and so they must be forced into it. Straights must be frightened into it. Terrorized into it…”

  I look up from the leaflet.

  Holy shit. The Swans are terrorists.

  They want to hack government drones and kill people.

  And for some reason they’re waiting to see if I’m one of them.

  Leo and Jackson are watching me.

  I sit back on Leo’s bed, clasping my hands in my lap. “We are not calling the police.”

  “Aidy,” says Leo, “this is possibly terrorism.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I say, uncertainly. “We don’t know anything about what this is.”

  “We kind of do,” says Leo.

  “Bad people are coming after you,” says Jackson. “We know that. The Swans. Whoever shot that guy in the hotel room. You fell into a spider web of shit here. Tell me why you don’t want to call the police?”

  “Because the Swans threatened my family—”

  “Yeah, if you didn’t deliver the flash drive, which you don’t have anyway.”

  “I can reason with that guy I talked to on the phone.”

  “How do you know that?” says Jackson, raising an eyebrow.

  Because I just have a feeling. There was a mysterious link between us. “If I don’t go to the police, he’ll see—”

  “What? That you’re one of them?” asks Leo.

  “Aidan,” says Jackson, his eyes narrowing, “are you sympathizing with them? The Swans?”

  “No!” I protest. But… am I? Just a little? No. They threatened me, and my family. I mean it was a little vague. But still, it was a threat. They’re obviously evil.

  But maybe… also justified?

  “I mucked up a crime scene,” I say. “I took all that cash. After I woke up with a dead body next to me! The Swans could make it seem like I killed Benoît. And the police may not even know who I am yet, and I’d just be incriminating myself. Unnecessarily.”

  “I can pretty much guarantee if they don’t know who you are yet, they will very soon,” says Jackson. “You left your ID. And fingerprints. There are security cams all over that hotel. You did everything short of making a YouTube video.”

  “I just—”

  “This is really about protecting your own ass,” says Jackson.

  I jump up. “YO! This didn’t happen to you! And the police may not believe me. Ever consider that? And yeah, I’m scared, dude.”

  “Aidan, listen,” Jackson starts to say, in a softer tone, but I cut him off.

  “And don’t give me that bullshit about making bad decisions, because my decisions weren’t that bad, okay? No riskier than the shit you guys do. This could have happened to you. This could have happened to anyone. My aunt caught on fire. That could have happened to someone else’s aunt. You know? Right?”

  My poor Aunt Meredith. She’s never had it easy. Twice divorced, bad investments, mood disorders; she seems to just have bad fucking luck. I wonder if you can inherit that. All she did was go to a Vegas casino and try to get away from her unhappiness, her dashed dreams, and then she nearly gets burned alive by the sun? Fate is so random and cruel.

  And that kid Drew, who died in an avalanche, skiing in the Alps. Why did we make fun of that? That’s so awful. I can’t imagine what that must have been like, realizing an avalanche was coming right for him, then being swallowed up.

  Some by fire and some by ice…

  And some by walking into a hotel room…

  Homosexuality is the disease and AIDS is the cure…

  “Who are these Swans anyway?” I say. “Just some pathetic losers trying to wage a war no one will ever know or care about. They haven’t done anything except try—unsuccessfully—to get some stupid malware.”

  But even as I say this, I know it was hardly a party prank—someone got killed.

  And by who?

  There’s a long silence.

  “All right. It’s really late,” says Jackson, “and I have an early interview. So I think we should crash, get some rest, and reassess in the morning.”

  So we do. And I have crazy-deep sleep, my brain trying to shield me from the nightmares waiting to emerge, bloated with whacked-out images of all the terrible things that happened to me tonight. And could happen to me tomorrow.

  Instead of all the politics and the radicalism and the history and all that fervor and pain, my brain focuses in on what it wants to cradle the most.

  So, of course, I have this early-morning dream, short and gauzy, where I’m in bed with Tom again, and we’re laughing, my head on his naked chest. Morning sunlight pours through the windows, as it did. And it feels so real, like we’re back together again, that when I wake up—realizing it was just a dream, and that I’m really lying in a bunk bed in Brooklyn as a possible fugitive from justice, chased by helmeted creeps on bikes—tears gloss my eyes.

  I sit up and see the time. I slept late. Jackson’s already back from his interview. He’s still wearing his suit and tie, and of course he looks amazing. There’s a TV on and Leo and Jackson are glued to it, sitting on their respective beds across the room from me.

  “What happened?” I rub m
y eyes. “Are they reporting a murder at the hotel?”

  Leo looks at me, shakes his head.

  CNN is in frantic Breaking News mode. They clearly don’t have the time or interest to cover some dead guy found in a five-star hotel.

  They’re way too busy focusing on three small-scale terror attacks that all happened this morning while I slept.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Swans

  Here’s what’s blaring on CNN:

  At approximately 8:08 this morning, Dale Ashford—the governor of Florida—died during routine surgery. His drug-infusion pump had been hacked, delivering a fatal overdose of medication. Ashford had recently issued an executive order revoking newly enacted protections for LGBT state workers.

  At 8:49 a.m., Wallace Norvett, the governor of Kansas, dropped dead on a golf course. It is now believed that his implanted cardiac Bluetooth defibrillator was hacked, causing a fatal arrhythmia. Governor Norvett opposed LGBT anti-discrimination laws, and rallied Congress not to accept homosexuals as a true minority. He had argued that government funds should be diverted from caring for people with HIV and AIDS into conversion-therapy programs. He apparently had managed to keep his heart condition a secret (also, he was cheating on his wife).

  And at 9:10 a.m., North Carolina Republican Representative Grady Leader—a vocal sponsor of anti-LGBT legislation that crashed his state’s economy due to a boycott—was involved in an actual crash: a fatal highway collision. It was the result, they now say, of his Chevy Impala’s OnStar navigation system being hacked, locking his brakes while he was going eighty.

  The feds connected the dots fast: coordinated attacks, a “fixation” on a method (what they’re calling “cyber-warfare”), and victims with outspoken anti-gay beliefs. This immediately drove the media into a big-ass frenzy, labeling the three deaths “terrorism” because at precisely the time of death of each victim, an image of a swan was simultaneously tweeted from the hacked accounts of all three victims.

  They show the image on the screen, and yeah, it’s the same menacing-looking swan graphic as Benoît’s tattoo. No numbers, though.

  What was that thing I said last night?

  Just some pathetic losers trying to wage a war no one will ever know or care about.

  They just took out two governors and a congressman.

  This is some seriously sinister shit.

  And yet, there’s a voice in the back of my mind saying: Good for them. Part of me wants to applaud.

  The media clearly have no idea what any of this means. And it makes me wonder if we know more than they do about what might be coming next.

  Was this Phase 1?

  Jackson says we should all go to breakfast.

  His interview went well this morning. Like something involving Jackson wouldn’t go well. He’s pleased with himself. But he still looks worried.

  I can envision Jackson and Leo taking this out of my hands now, doing something they think is for “my own good.” I watch, out of the corner of my eye, Jackson staring at his phone, looking at me, and staring at his phone again, sighing, lips pursed.

  Leo hands me my very own blue Egyptian cotton towel so I can take a shower. I nab a spare phone charger from Leo, grab Benoît’s flash drive, turn the shower on, let the bathroom steam up, and sneak downstairs. That cash I swiped from the hotel room is still stuffed into my shorts. I slept with it on me. Quickly and quietly, I slip out of the house. I just can’t let this drag on where Jackson and Leo might be seen as my accomplices, get into trouble, or be put in harm’s way because of me.

  I’m on my own here. I always was.

  Brooklyn looks positively charming in the daylight, leafy and serene. I have no idea where I’m going. I think I’ll head into Manhattan, go back to the hotel, retrieve my keycard, and then decide about calling the cops. If they’re already there, looking for me, I might be safer in their hands. But maybe they’re not. Yet.

  I try to figure out the trains on Google Maps. But I get only one block down before two thick-necked men, one of them holding a silver pistol that glints in the sun, step forcefully onto the sidewalk and cut me off.

  Bizarrely, looking at them triggers a pleasant memory.

  I never got along with other kids my age. I used to spend time at my neighbors’ house. They lived across the street—an elderly couple with grown kids who had moved away ages ago. They’d make me iced tea, and we’d chat. One day they led me into their overstuffed attic. They had piles of Hardy Boys books, the vintage ones from the 1960s with the blue covers and the spooky-yet-campy mystery titles. “Take as many as you want,” they told me, “they’re just gathering dust here.” So I took them all.

  These two dudes remind me right away of the Hardy Boys on those covers, with their navy V-neck sweaters and white-collared shirts underneath.

  If the Hardy Boys were beefy, scowly, and packed heat.

  The gun is thrust hard into my lower abdomen. That’ll leave a bruise.

  “Mr. Preston,” the armed one says, throatily, and I know immediately these aren’t the police.

  My heart instantly starts pounding. “Never heard of him,” I reply.

  They lead me toward a cherry-colored Chevy Tahoe idling in the middle of the street. “Get in,” the guy with the gun says.

  “I don’t get into cars with strangers, sorry.”

  They both frisk me, fast and rough.

  Then Hardy Boy without a Gun opens the rear door, grabs my head, and shoves me inside. He opens the driver’s side and takes the wheel as Hardy Boy with a Gun gets in the passenger side. As soon as the Tahoe screeches away, Hardy Boy without a Gun turns around and snatches the phone out of my hands.

  “I just charged that.”

  “You won’t be needing it,” he says.

  Hardy Boy with a Gun, to his credit, doesn’t point his weapon at me as we speed off. But he gives me a look over his shoulder, like: Don’t give me a reason to. They both wear gloves. I don’t like that.

  “Did we meet last night? Were you the guys in the club? Hey, nice work. Sorry we couldn’t hang out longer. That was fun, though.”

  I always get chatty when I’m terrified.

  They don’t answer. We go over a bridge, then onto a highway. I try to memorize our exact route, but that’s hard because I barely know New York and we’re going fast. The doors are locked. Believe me, I tried that.

  I lean back. The leather seats are smooth and cool.

  My palms are sweaty. I’m trying to remain calm. I did not expect things to accelerate so fast, or quite like this. Three people are dead today because of these guys; they are obviously serious and mean business. And they’re good at what they do.

  And I feel ambivalent. I would never condone murder, but I can relate to their anger. Why shouldn’t we fight back against these homophobes? The blood of every gay kid who commits suicide thinking they’ll never be loved in this world is on their hands. And aren’t they all pro-life and shit?

  I might only survive if I show the Swans the side of myself that agrees with them, even admires what they’re doing. Which might be a challenge, truly convincing them, because I’m not exactly a terrorist.

  I lean forward, put my head in my hands to quell my rising fear, and then sit back again, with a loud sniff, and say: “Listen, I’m supposed to meet my parents later today, my whole family, in fact, for dinner. Everyone’s going to be pretty worried if I’m not there. We have a flight to catch.”

  No one says anything. The car picks up even more speed.

  “To Nevada…” I add. “My aunt was burned by the Hotel Death Ray. Maybe you heard about that? Awful. Well. She’ll be upset if I’m not there.”

  Through her haze of pain meds, I doubt she’ll even notice if I’m there. Once, for my thirteenth birthday, she sent me Ethan Hawke’s first novel. My parents must’ve told her I like to read or some shit. It was such a WTF gift I realized she just didn’t know me at all. And why should she? We never see her. She thought she was getting me something cool.
But instead she gave me The Hottest State.

  It wasn’t even that bad. I wound up reading his other book, too.

  If I survive this, I should reach out to Aunt Meredith, try to be in her life a little more. What a weird resolution. Okay. Who cares? I’ll do it.

  The Hardy Boys are quiet, staring at the road ahead.

  I’m pretty sure I’m going to be murdered.

  These are terrorists who think I betrayed them. But everything is out of my hands at this point. There’s nothing more I can do. The previous twenty-four hours of nonstop traumatic crap have now come to this crushing head, so I can almost let go a little.

  “So was that you guys today?” I say, keeping my tone light. “On the news. Killing those homophobes? Nicely done.”

  Hardy Boy with a Gun shifts in his seat. But neither one answers me. I look out my window. We’re heading out of the city. I wonder if this will be my last few hours on the planet. Well, I had a solid run. Not a long one, but there were some good times, I guess.

  After a while, I see a road sign indicating we’re heading toward Long Island, then another sign that says we’re entering the Merrick Gables, whatever that is.

  We’re in some sort of picturesque suburban enclave now. Stucco homes, Mediterranean style. This isn’t the first place I’d pick for a terrorist group to congregate, but what do I know about their real estate needs?

  After what I estimate is forty-five minutes from when we left Brooklyn, the Tahoe pulls into a long driveway. The house, also in that chic Spanish style—white with orange roof tiles—is set far back from the street, buried under intense landscaping: lots of low-hanging trees that seem to want to eat the house up.

  My door is pulled open, my seat belt snapped off. I’m plucked out of the car and led by the back of the neck toward the front door. One of the Hardy Boys (the blonder one I’m calling Joe, the darker-haired one I’m calling Frank) knocks on the door. Someone opens it, but I can’t see who it is. Then I’m led inside, down a carpeted hall, into a library, where I’m pushed down into a leather chair draped with a soft Aztec blanket.