by Chris Kenry
“He ... pulled ... your hair,” I stammered, and looked again at Ray. His eyes went dark.
Sal returned with the water and Johnny drank with difficulty, avoiding the side of his mouth that had been split.
“What exactly did he look like?” Ray asked.
Johnny set down the glass. “He was tall. Taller than you, Jack, and he had black hair.”
“What kind of car did he drive?” I asked. “Did you see that?”
“It was blue, a sports car, I think a Porsche or BMW, I don’t know for sure, but I did see the license plate. It was some word, but I didn’t see what it said.”
“Oh, God,” I said, and a chill went through me as I remembered the size of his cock. I took Johnny by the shoulders and looked at him squarely.
“You’re not okay, are you?” I said.
He started crying and shook his head. I put my arm around him and he rested his head on my chest. I could feel him crying. I looked to Ray and Sal for some sort of help.
“Are you bleeding?” I asked, and felt his head nod slightly.
“We have to get him to a doctor.” Ray and Salvatore seemed suddenly nervous. I knew what they were thinking: if we took him to a hospital there would be questions, possibly police.
“No!” Johnny said, sitting up and wiping away his tears. “No trouble! I don’t want any trouble. It’s okay. I’ll be okay. After I knew I couldn’t stop him, I didn’t fight.”
“He needs a doctor,” I said sternly.
Ray and Salvatore looked at each other and then both nodded.
“We’ll take care of it,” Ray said.
“Yes.” Sal nodded, and began quietly repacking the camera equipment.
Ray helped the bewildered and somewhat reluctant Johnny up and led him to the door.
“But where will you take him?” I asked.
“We know a doctor,” Ray said. “He’ll check him out and tell us if it’s bad. No questions. You stay here and try to track the guy down.”
I nodded reluctantly, more because I was suddenly afraid of being alone, but I trusted Ray and Sal, and as they gently led Johnny down the stairs and helped him into the front seat of the hearse, I felt a warm admiration for them and this “other world” they knew so much about. The world of crooked jewelers and unscrupulous doctors who asked no questions. I’d lived in Denver all my life and had never run into such people, had never even known such people existed. I felt so sheltered and naive.
When they’d gone, I went back up to the office and locked the door. I paced around a bit and then went and looked out the window at the traffic whizzing by on Thirteenth. I remembered my attack and how closely it paralleled Johnny’s. I was sure it was the same guy, but I knew next to nothing about him, and what if I did? I couldn’t very well go to the police and say, “This guy attacked me and raped one of my guys when we were working as prostitutes. Go get him!” I drummed my fingers on the windowsill, thinking. Then I smiled as I realized I had my own doctor! I had my own crooked jeweler! But in my case it was a cop who liked sex toys. I went over to the desk, pulled up Warren’s number on the computer screen, and called him at work. I got through the receptionist, waited on hold for a while, but eventually he answered and I asked if it was safe to talk. He said it was, so, as concisely as I could, I told him the situation. I gave him all the information I had about the guy and his car and the license plate, and Warren said he’d be glad to run a check on it, and would call back if he found anything. I thanked him and hung up, feeling very self-satisfied, but the feeling was short-lived, and soon I was up again pacing the room nervously. I had planned to be filming all day, so I hadn’t scheduled myself anything until that night. It was only nine-thirty and none of the guys, not even the receptionist, was scheduled to come in until eleven. I tried to do some paperwork but I couldn’t concentrate and ended up staring absently at the flying windows on the computer screen. I thought of Johnny and all the rest of the guys now under my aegis. Clearly I needed to formulate some better way to protect them, and I made a mental note to call my dad and ask about paging options. Maybe we could have a special pager number or something to indicate trouble.
I also needed to get everyone checked for STDs, which we could do at the central hospital’s free STD clinic. Ray and I were in the habit of going every six weeks, and it couldn’t hurt to have all the guys do the same. I pulled up all the schedules and typed in a time for the following week. It would be good moral support for Johnny if we all went together.
Ray returned late that afternoon, by which time other crises had arisen, and I was busy behind the desk taking calls and helping Josh with the scheduling for that evening. We stopped everything when he came in and both waited expectantly.
“He’ll be okay,” Ray said. “I took him back to his dorm. The doctor had seen that kind of thing all the time in prison. He cleaned him up, gave him some antibiotics and a shot of Demerol, and, well, let’s just say he won’t be studying much tonight.”
The phone rang and it was Warren.
“I ran that check on the car, a blue Porsche, license plate BUCKS ...” he said, trailing off.
“And ... what?” I asked. “You didn’t find him?”
“Oh, no, I found him all right. He’s a Carlyle.”
“You mean one of the Carlyles?”
“None other.”
Saying Carlyle in Colorado is like saying Kennedy in Massachusetts, or Windsor in Britain. The Carlyles are a wealthy Colorado family whose initial nest egg came from silver mining. Oswald Carlyle had been one of the few to strike it rich in the 1800s, and his family had not only held on to, but increased their money in the years following. They now had interests in uranium, land development, ski resorts, trucking, broadcasting, etc.... But, as so often happens with wealthy families, great empires, and certain ancient breeds of dogs, subsequent generations tend to mutate and decline. A sort of social and moral decay sets in, and to this the Carlyles were not immune. They were now more notorious for their messy divorces, troubled children, and poor driving records than for any of their business or philanthropic ventures.
“So which one owns the car?” I asked eagerly.
“The car is registered to a Johnathan Oswald Carlyle the third, and he’s got a rap sheet almost as long as his name. Let’s see here, we’ve got one arrest for cocaine possession, one for aggravated assault, and ... hmmm, I’m assuming you didn’t see him driving, because I’m showing here that his license is suspended until next month for his second drunk-driving conviction.”
“What a loser!”
“You said it. Listen, if he does anything like that again, or if he even comes around, you let me know,” Warren said. “Maybe we can nail him on something else.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I will,” and hung up.
Later that evening, back at Ray’s house, where I was then spending all of my evenings that weren’t spent staring at the ceilings of strange hotel rooms, we talked about the day. I sat on a bar stool in the kitchen drinking a beer while Ray made dinner. We were both angry, but only I was angry and frustrated. Frustrated because I felt helpless to protest against something that was so clearly unjust. I felt like someone had “gotten” me, like someone had pulled one over on me, much the way I’d felt after Paul’s sister tossed me out, although the circumstances were hardly similar. Having lived outside of the law for most of his life, and having endured more of life’s slings and arrows than I, Ray was not nearly so credulous. He had survived the neglect and indifference of parents and teachers, had experienced unjust drug deals, and tricks who refused to pay, and so he was rarely surprised when he faced injustice. In fact, he almost expected it.
“Don’t let it get to you,” he said, sensing my frustration. “The police were helpful in finding out who he was, but we don’t need them to deal with this. We can take care of it ourselves.”
I wondered how.
Later, as we lay in the dark, looking up at the stars through the skylights, each lost in our own heads, I
thought about the business, the paper castle I’d constructed, and how any number of events—a tax audit, trouble with the police, or even my parents finding out—would be just enough to crumple it all up. I thought again about getting out of it, just stopping and moving on to something else. I couldn’t expect this to go on forever, and I was feeling more confident that I could do something else, something legal and legitimate. I knew I wouldn’t feel much remorse about walking away from hustling, since lately it had become much like any other job: a lot of hard work. Oh, I’d feel some remorse about leaving the subs high and dry, but they each had their own ad and would need only to change the phone number to continue doing business. I knew that Ray was still awake, so I decided to broach the subject of the gallery again.
“I think after my graduation from the business class, I want to get out of this,” I said. “Move on to something else.” Ray said nothing but shifted his weight slightly.
“I’m out of debt now and I’ve, uh, been thinking about the gallery more. I think we should seriously work on a business plan and maybe start scoping out a space.” Still no response, but I knew he was listening, so I continued.
“I’ve been thinking about some marketing strategies, and I think that if we do it we should open with a big bang. Something really funny and controversial, and then think up some new way to publicize the hell out of it.”
Still nothing.
“Are you listening?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, why aren’t you saying anything?”
He sat up in the darkness and gave a frustrated sigh.
“I guess ...” he started, and then stopped to try to better formulate his words. “I guess I’m just wondering how serious you are.” He paused again, and again I knew he was considering the best way to say what he had to say.
“Now don’t take this the wrong way, Jack, but I kind of feel like you’ve been leading me on with the whole gallery idea, and I feel sort of stupid for having gone along. Not stupid really, but I ... Jack, I ... Shit!” He smacked his head with his fists. He was clearly frustrated, which was rare for him, and I sensed that he knew what he wanted to say but really didn’t want to say it. He fell back on the bed and exhaled loudly.
“Look,” he said. “I have really strong feelings for you, and I don’t know how or what you feel about me. I think it’s fucking great that you’re interested in the gallery, but I don’t even know if you’re serious about it, and if you are, I don’t ... I don’t know if I could work with you, feeling the way I do. I mean, if you don’t feel anything. If it’s just sex. If it’s just friendship.”
Now it was my turn to say nothing. I felt something akin to resentment boiling inside me. So now our plans were contingent upon my loving Ray. This was just the way it had been with Paul. Or was it? I knew I liked Ray, whereas I had never really liked Paul. I’d been impressed with him, and been attracted to his money, and his notoriety, and his education, but I really hadn’t liked him. Yes, I liked Ray, of that I was certain, and there was no one I would rather spend time with, but he was trying to tell me that he was in love with me, and I didn’t know how to respond. When I was with Paul this would have been one of the times I mechanically said “I love you, too” and then I would have had sex with him, exaggerating my enthusiasm in order to get my way (which is, if one considers it, the really criminal type of prostitution). I thought of doing that then, of appeasing his worries with a few false words and a sexual Band-Aid, but I knew I shouldn’t. I liked Ray, yes, but more than that I respected him, and I decided not to lie. Instead I was as honest as I could be. I pulled him toward me and ran my fingers through his hair.
“That,” I said thoughtfully, “is something I really hadn’t considered.”
24
POETIC JUSTICE
About a week later I was sitting at the desk typing up some things for class when he called. Tom, a.k.a. Johnathan Oswald Carlyle the third. I recognized the voice but didn’t make the connection at first. He was calling the number for James’s ad, and said he was a first-time caller, and that he wanted James to meet him at a motel on Sixth Avenue. I hesitated a moment. We usually didn’t send guys out to unknown clients because so many of them turned out to be cranks, and since Johnny’s attack, we were certainly not going to do it. Rather than explain all that, I said that James didn’t have a car and so they would have to meet at the office. He reluctantly agreed and I asked his name.
“Tom,” he said, and it was then that I made the connection. Something in his voice made me certain it was Carlyle, and I could feel myself getting flustered.
“Uh, I’m going to put you on hold for just a minute,” I said, and placed the phone back in its cradle, eyeing it with revulsion. I opened another line, picked up the receiver again, and paged Ray, leaving the new emergency code we’d established. I took another deep breath and reconnected with “Tom.”
“Okay,” I said, “I just had to check James’s schedule. Is nine-thirty tonight okay?”
“Fine.”
“Then it’s all set. I’ve got you down for nine-thirty in room two,” I said, and quickly hung up.
Ray called a minute later, and I told him what had happened and what I’d done.
“You didn’t let on that you knew it was him?” he asked.
“No.”
“And you’re sure it was him?”
“Positive. Should I call Warren?” I asked.
“No! No, don’t do that. Cancel all my stuff for today; I’ll be there in about half an hour.”
When he showed up, he had Salvatore and a lot of camera equipment with him. Ray told me to cancel all in-house appointments after seven-thirty that night and to call Vince and Craig, two of the larger college students, and Marvin, and tell them to come in at nine. That done, I was instructed to go out and buy three pairs of nylons, any size, twenty feet of nylon rope, and three videotapes. I kept asking what he was doing, but all I got was, “I’m not sure; I’m making it up as I go along. Go get the stuff; I’ll tell you later.”
I had my microbusiness class to go to and a few tricks that afternoon, which Ray said I should attend to. I did so, and was soon so busy I nearly forgot about Carlyle.
The class was getting frantic now, as we were all finalizing our business plans for submission to the loan committee. It was stressful, tedious work charting the course you expected your business to take and then coming up with the numbers to match. We worked in pairs that day, and I tried to get with Salvatore so I could find out if he knew anything about what Ray was planning, but I got assigned Millie, and before long we were lost in a sea of cash-flow projections and payment schedules. By the time we finished up, all the others, Sal included, had left.
“Start thinking of who you want to speak at graduation, class,” Tina called out as Millie and I were leaving. “Because we really need to send out invitations no later than next week.”
After class I drove down to Hole’s for the biweekly help with financials, which took a long time because he was brutally tough, insisting I do all the work on paper with no help from the computer.
“If you can’t figure this shit out on your own, at least the first time, you’re never going to figure it out.”
It was nearly twelve-thirty when we finished, and I rushed back to my apartment, arriving just in time to entertain the first of my four lunchtime clients. I then worked out with Marvin, and after that he accompanied me to Kmart, where we shopped for the items on Ray’s cryptic list. We stopped for dinner at one of those salad cafeterias and then headed back to the office, arriving a little before nine.
When we arrived, Vince and Craig were seated on the couch watching TV and each playing with a pair of handcuffs. They gave little waves and said that Ray was in the back room finalizing things with Sal. I headed in that direction but met Ray on the way. He smiled at me and then took my hand and led me back into the office and shut off the TV. I almost didn’t recognize him because he had removed all of his piercings, had his
hair combed, and was dressed in his rarely used workout clothes. He had us all sit down, lit a cigarette and briefed us on the plan.
“Okay, I’ve told Vince and Craig a little of what’s going on, but I want to finalize everything before Carlyle gets here, okay?”
We nodded.
“All right, he’ll come in and I’ll take him into room two. Hopefully I can pass as James, since his ad doesn’t show his head.”
It doesn’t show any tattoos, either, I thought, but kept that comment to myself.
“We’ve got the room rigged with a camera,” Ray continued, “so we can film all of what goes on. Hopefully he’ll do the same stuff he did before. I’ll keep him busy for a while, and hopefully we’ll get some nasty shit on tape.”
We nodded and he led us into room three. Sal was sitting in a swivel chair, adjusting the view of room two that now appeared on the TV screen. He had used the existing hole that Carlyle had conveniently knocked out the week before and had inserted the camera into it. Then he had carved another, more elegant hole in the wall of room two, poked the lens through that, and placed a two-way mirror over it.
“When I give the signal to Sal,” Ray said, “I want you all to come in from room three with the stockings over your heads, get his hands and feet cuffed, and then take the rope and tie his chest and his legs to the bed so he can’t thrash around. Wrap it around him and the entire mattress twice, like so,” he said, pulling the rope from under the bed, “and then one guy on either side pull it tight. After that, well, I guess we’ll just wing it. Now everybody back in room three and Sal will tell you when I give the signal.”
I handed the bag of stockings and rope to Vince, and when everyone else had left I shut the door and went over to Ray.
“We’ll just wing it?” I said somewhat angrily. “We’re going to take someone hostage and we’re just going to wing it?”
“Yeah!” he said, grinning and nodding excitedly.
“And what are we going to do with him once we’ve got him tied up?”