The Dirt Peddler

by Dorien Grey

  Checks? He was sending Tunderew checks, and that arrogant asshole just tore them up without opening them because he assumed they were love letters!

  “Where do you send them?”

  “He has a post office box. When I’d copy a file for him, I’d stay after work to do it, and then mail it to him at his box. He didn’t want me to just give it to him there at work, and I couldn’t send it to his home because of his wife. I don’t have his home address anyway.”

  “And did you ever find anything to incriminate any Craylaw and Collier personnel?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, I never read anything I copied. That wouldn’t be right. Tony would just tell me which file he wanted and I’d find it and copy the whole thing.”

  I wondered if he knew it was Tunderew who had gotten him fired.

  “You’re no longer working at Craylaw and Collier, I understand.”

  He looked embarrassed, and again lowered his eyes.

  “No. I…I was fired. I think someone found out I was copying files, though they never asked me anything until later when the lawyers talked to me. When he found out I was fired, Tony went right to Mr. Craylaw to ask him to give me my job back.”

  “He did? How do you know that?”

  “Tony told me.”

  Dear God!

  “When did he tell you that?”

  “I ran into him in the hall when I came back to the office the next day to pick up some of the things I’d left.”

  “Were you aware that Mr. Tunderew is being blackmailed?” I asked, again watching closely for any reaction that might indicate I was wrong in thinking it wasn’t him.

  He looked truly shocked. “No! What for? Who’d do something like that?” He paused and then nodded his head up and down slowly, eyes narrowing. “I’ll bet it’s his wife! I heard that he finally filed for divorce. I’ll bet she’s trying to get even!”

  The guy had a good point. Now that I’d ruled him out, she’d be the next logical place to look. I was still amazed at how incredibly naive Fletcher was about Tunderew and what he was really up to.

  I couldn’t resist asking the obvious. “Didn’t you think it a little odd that after Mr. Tunderew had you do all that file copying on Governor Keene, he comes out with a book on the scandal?”

  He shook his head. “No…well, maybe a little bit at first, but I went to his very first book signing and waited for him afterwards until he came out, and I talked to him and asked him about it. He said the FBI had given him permission to use anything he’d found out about the scandal for helping them, except he couldn’t mention Craylaw and Collier because the investigation is still going on.”

  And the kid actually believes it! my mind said, incredulous. How can any one human being be so stupid?

  And the minute I thought that, I was ashamed of myself. It wasn’t a matter of being stupid, just a matter of seeing what one wants to see. Fletcher sincerely thought Tunderew was his friend, and that alone made me truly sad.

  There was one other thing I thought I should clear up, just for my own satisfaction.

  “Mr. Tunderew says he’s seen you at a couple of his book signings.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Yes, I wanted to be one of the first ones to buy his book, and I did have those questions for him, so I went to that signing I told you about. And then I went to Bennington’s opening of their new store in The Central to have him sign a copy to send to my folks. He was so busy, he hardly even had a chance to look at me.”

  Uh huh.

  I got up from my chair.

  “Well, thanks very much for coming in, Mr. Fletcher. I’ll let Mr. Tunderew know I’ve talked with you. And he told me to tell you to just forget about repaying the loan. He owes you a lot more than that.”

  Fletcher got up and followed me to the door. He was obviously delighted that Tunderew had been thinking of him. I was very glad he did not know in what way.

  “Please tell Tony hello for me, will you?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Smiling, he left.

  Chapter 3

  Jonathan showed up about five minutes after Larry Fletcher left, and we got on with our weekend. I was pleasantly surprised to find that from the moment I closed the office door behind me until I opened it again on Monday, I hadn’t given more than a total of five minutes of thought to my current case—largely, I’m sure, because other than my empathy for Larry Fletcher, I knew I really didn’t care who was blackmailing Tony T. Tunderew.

  Well, with Fletcher eliminated, in my mind anyway, as the blackmailer, it was time to move on to the wife…or ex-wife by now. After I’d gone through my coffee/paper/crossword puzzle ritual Monday morning, I dialed Tunderew’s “office” number. I needed him to call me so I could tell him about Fletcher, and get the number and address for his ex.

  “Mr. Tunderew’s office,” the switchboard operator said. I wondered idly if she even had any idea who he was.

  “Is Mr. Tunderew in?” I asked, just to see what this one would say.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, and there was a slight pause. When she continued, it was obvious she was reading from a prepared text. “Mr. Tunderew will be out of town until Thursday of this week on a book signing tour. He will be a guest on A.M. New York on Channel Fourteen on Tuesday at nine forty-five local time and invites you to watch.”

  God, what a sweetheart that Tunderew is! one of my little mind-voices whispered reverently. He wants you to watch him plug his book. Almost brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it?

  “Uh, thank you, but I’ll be having an elective root canal at that time. Could I just leave him a message, please?”

  I left my number and told him to call me.

  After I hung up, it occurred to me that with Tunderew having been so dead certain that Larry Fletcher was the blackmailer, and having hired me primarily because both Fletcher and I are gay, he never made it clear what he wanted me to do if it wasn’t Fletcher. I could either sit back and wait for him to call, or proceed on the assumption that he’d still want me to find out who the blackmailer was. In the back of my mind, I suspected that when I told him I didn’t think it was Fletcher, he’d think I was lying to protect a fellow faggot and fire me. Well, I wasn’t just going to sit around and twiddle my thumbs for that to happen. I’d been hired to find his blackmailer, and I’d do my best to do just that. And you can be damned sure I would bill him for every minute spent on the case up to the point of getting the ax.

  While I was almost certain that he wouldn’t be listed in the phone book, I picked it up and turned to the Ts. I was right. “Tundeman, James” was followed by “Tundfell, Stanley.” Nary a “Tunderew” to be found.

  I decided to call Glen O’Banyon’s office on the assumption that he might know how to get in touch with Tunderew’s ex. O’Banyon, of course, was in court, but I left a message with Donna, asking her to see if I could get Mrs. Tunderew’s first name and current address and phone number. She said she would get back to me.

  *

  Around two o’clock, Jonathan called. Unusual for him to call at that hour, but I was glad to hear from him anyway.

  “Hi, Babe. What’s up?”

  “Can you do me a favor?” he asked, then paused. “I mean can I do Randy a favor?”

  He had me confused, but it wasn’t a first time for that. “Sure, I suppose. What does he need?”

  “He wants to come into town tonight. He, uh, he’s got some stuff he wants to do, and he needs a ride in and back. Would that be okay if I went and got him and took him back later?”

  “Uh, I guess,” I said, not wanting to press him for details.

  “Great! Thanks! I’m at the office at work now. We were out at New Eden this morning and I had to run back to pick up some fertilizer, so I thought I’d better call now so I can tell Randy when I go back out there. Thanks a lot! I’ll see you at home.”

  “Okay.”

  I really hoped Randy wasn’t going to look on Jonathan as a regular taxi service. It didn’t occur to me
to wonder what “stuff” Randy had to do in town.

  *

  “What time are you supposed to pick up Randy?” I asked as we sat on the sofa in our just-home-from-work mode.

  “Six thirty or seven,” Jonathan replied, taking a long swig from his Coke. “I really hope you don’t mind. I know it’s kind of an imposition, but he said he had something he wanted to talk to me about, and we can’t talk there.”

  “That’s okay.” I didn’t ask why Randy didn’t just come over here, because I realized he probably wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about whatever it was in front of me.

  “So you’re just supposed to take him into town and pick him up later, or…?”

  Jonathan blushed and looked uncomfortable. “Yeah.”

  I cocked my head and looked at him with a slightly raised eyebrow until he gave a huge sigh and said, “He wants to come in to town so he can…uh, make a little money. He says he needs some cash to tide him over until some big deal he’s got going comes through.”

  I could sense that wasn’t the whole story.

  “So you’re just supposed to take him into town and pick him up later?” I repeated.

  He took his feet off the table, chug-a-lugged his Coke and didn’t meet my eyes. “Yes, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said a little defensively. “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”

  That took me aback. “Of course I trust you.”

  We sat quietly for a moment, I looking at him, he looking at the floor. Finally, without looking up at me, he said: “He, uh…he wanted me to go with him. He says he knows this guy who likes three-ways with hustlers. I told him ‘no way.’ Even if I was single I wouldn’t get back into hustling for anything! He wants to hustle, that’s his business, but he can do it on his own.”

  I had to admit I had a queasy feeling in my stomach when he first mentioned the subject, but I realized it was just a flush of the old Scorpio curse: jealousy and possessiveness. Still, I was a little pissed at Randy for even suggesting it…he knew Jonathan was in a relationship.

  Same song, Hardesty, my mind-voice said, and I knew it was right.

  “Any idea what he wants to talk to you about?”

  He sat back on the sofa as the tension dissolved. “Not really. I think it’s got something to do with this big deal he’s working on. He mentioned it at dinner the night he was over, if you remember.”

  I remembered.

  He shrugged. “Hustlers talk big, but he really sounds like he’s got something. I’ll find out.”

  I reached out and gave his leg a squeeze. “Nice to know I’m not the only detective in the family.”

  *

  Rather than bothering to fix dinner, we decided to run out to a local fried chicken place, after which Jonathan dropped me off at the apartment and headed off for New Eden. I sat around the apartment watching TV…all right, all right, and looking at the clock…until Jonathan came in at around seven thirty.

  “Everything go all right?”

  Jonathan came over and plopped down beside me on the sofa. “Yeah. I think this’ll be the last time I’ll be playing taxi, though.”

  “Oh?”

  He sighed. “Yeah, if he wants to come over and hang around sometime, that’s fine, but I don’t want to be in a position of having to lie for him.”

  “Why would you have to lie for him?”

  “Everybody who stays at New Eden can leave one night a week, supposedly, as long as they say where they’re going. Randy told them he was coming over here with me. And he told me he gets to leave any time he wants to.”

  “Yeah? How does he manage that?”

  Jonathan pursed his lips and looked at me closely. “Well, I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but…” He paused, and I managed to keep quiet and let him finish his sentence when he was ready. “Randy’s having sex with Jeffrey Dinsmore.”

  Well, surprise, surprise!

  I looked at him.

  “He is? Or he says he is?”

  Jonathan shrugged. “I think he really is. Apparently Mr. Dinsmore has a fondness for hustlers—that’s why so many of them end up at New Eden.”

  “Does his wife know?” I wondered aloud.

  “Oh, I really doubt it. Dinsmore’s very discreet, Randy says. He only does it with guys when his wife is out of town. And she’s out of town a lot.”

  “Well, that’s a fascinating little bit of news. And exactly how does Randy benefit from all this? Other than the privilege of changing Mr. Dinsmore’s oil—or having Mr. Dinsmore change his?”

  Jonathan grinned. “New Eden has a work referral program. They train the street kids who go there in lots of different fields, and then when they’re ready to move on, New Eden helps find them a job. The Dinsmores are pretty well connected, so they can come up with some pretty good jobs. Randy’s been working in the office…filing and making travel arrangements for the Dinsmores and stuff like that, and he’s managed to get in pretty tight with both of them, but especially Mr. Dinsmore, of course. He’s pretty sure they can find him a really good job when he’s ready.”

  He was silent a moment.

  “Somehow I get the idea there’s more to it than that. But Randy wouldn’t say anything. Just hints that sounded to me like he was expecting a lot more than a good job.”

  “What time are you supposed to pick him up—and where?”

  “Eleven o’clock…at Hughie’s. Will you come with me? I know it’s late and we both have to get up early, but I really don’t want to go into Hughie’s by myself.”

  I wasn’t wild about the idea either.

  “Sure, if you want.”

  We watched some TV and left the apartment a little before ten thirty. Traffic was fairly light at that hour on a Monday night, and we even managed to find a parking place just down the block from the bar—probably partly because not many hustlers had their own cars.

  As we walked toward the bar, we saw one hustler leaning against one side of the entrance, apparently hoping to snare a john before he had a chance to check out the competition inside. But as we got closer, I saw the guy couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Even at Hughie’s they check IDs.

  Jeesus!

  Jonathan leaned toward me as we approached him and said, “I’ll meet you inside, okay?”

  I knew he wanted to talk to the kid, so I said, “Sure.” I nodded to the kid as I passed him and opened the door, while Jonathan stopped in front of him and said, “Hi.”

  The bar itself was pretty quiet. Again, it was a weeknight and some of the hustlers who’d normally come in earlier had probably left to work the streets, where the odds of being picked up might be slightly higher. And they didn’t have to waste money on even one beer.

  It was close to eleven, and no sign of Randy, which irked me somehow. I went to the bar and ordered a beer and a Coke from a bartender I didn’t recognize. I was so used to seeing Bud behind the bar that this other guy being there caught me rather by surprise. But then I realized Bud had to have time off sometime.

  I’d always found it fairly easy to tell the hustlers from the johns, and of the ten guys in the place other than the bartender and me, I’d say it was seven to three in favor of the hustlers. So when the bartender brought the drinks and took my money, I set the Coke on the bar in front of the empty stool next to me to dissuade anyone from thinking I was looking for a pickup.

  Jonathan came in about five minutes later and sat down beside me. He looked pensive and distracted as he picked up his Coke.

  “I told him about Haven House.”

  I’d figured. “Good.”

  He was quiet, staring at the back bar.

  “I really hate this place,” he said.

  The door opened and I turned to see if it was Randy. It wasn’t. A well-dressed, good-looking guy in a business suit came in and walked to the stool on the other side of Jonathan. He ordered a beer, then glanced at Jonathan and broke into a grin that had more of Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf than casual pleasure in it.
/>   “Hey, how’s it goin’? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  Jonathan looked embarrassed and glanced quickly from the guy to me.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Lookin’ really good,” the guy said, staring at Jonathan with a look that left little doubt where he was headed, and giving me the feeling that I must be invisible to him.

  Poor Jonathan was obviously excruciatingly uncomfortable. Finally he looked at the guy and said, “I’m with someone now.”

  For the first time the guy seemed to realize I was there.

  “Oh. Okay.” Then he turned his grin to me. Obviously he assumed I was just another john.

  “I can vouch for this one,” he said, with a head jerk to Jonathan that reminded me of a cattle auctioneer. “You’ll sure get your money’s worth.”

  On rare occasions, I can be very proud of myself. This was one of them. While a very large part of me—okay, the Scorpio part, which is a very large part of me—wanted to get up and throw the guy through the wall, which I think Jonathan was afraid I might try to do, I managed to control myself, nodded, and said nothing.

  “Well, I’ll see ya around,” the guy said, picking up his beer and moving off toward the other end of the bar, where a tall, thin kid in a worn leather jacket watched him coming over with a sly smile.

  Jonathan just stared at his Coke and shook his head slowly back and forth.

  “I’m so sorry, Dick. He picked me up here once, just before I met you, and…”

  I reached out to put my arm around his shoulder. “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

  He gave me a weak smile.

  “Have I mentioned that I really hate this place?”

  I glanced at my watch and noticed it was ten after eleven, and no Randy. Jonathan then looked at his own watch and said, “Let’s give him ten more minutes, okay? Then we’ll go, and he can find his own way back.”

  We finished our drinks in relative silence, noting the guy in the business suit—who one of my mind-voices insisted on referring to as Jonathan’s ex—left with the kid in the leather jacket.

  At eleven twenty, we got up to leave. Just as we reached the sidewalk—the teenager was gone—a battered pickup truck pulled up to the curb and Randy got out. He shut the door without looking back and came quickly over to us.