by Tal Bauer
Looking for. He bit his lip. Chat, dates, friends, networking—people networked on this app?—a relationship, or… right now. Well. Not to put too fine a point on that.
He chose chat, dates, and friends. He wasn’t ready for anything else.
Relationship status. He snorted. Single. Perpetually single. Eternally single.
He had no social networks. He’d learned long ago not to get involved in social media online. It was a tool for defense attorneys and vicious, vengeful criminals to try and find and use against you.
It wanted a picture.
He couldn’t put a picture of his face on the app. He just couldn’t, no matter how anonymous it promised to be. He’d seen scandals born in Washington DC from anonymous encounters, promises of secrets being kept. He didn’t want to end up as another headline, another DC has-been.
He picked a cute picture of Etta Mae and put it up instead. Everyone liked dogs, right?
And then… he was online.
Holy God.
A stream of images, men’s torsos, men’s asses, men eating popsicles and bananas, men bare-chested, men pouting. Close-ups of biceps and pecs. Pictures of bulges, what looked like tube socks shoved down suit pants.
Men tied up in leather.
His jaw dropped.
It was all—relatively—clean. Nothing pornographic, nothing hardcore right on the front page. But, holy hell, the line was seriously pushed and blurred.
He didn’t know where to look first. His eyes bounced around the screen, flicking from one younger guy to the next. Everyone seemed gorgeous, and perpetually in their late twenties to early thirties.
He was a dinosaur in comparison.
Where were men nearer his age?
He found the search settings and skewed the toggles up to only show ages from the mid-thirties to… just under fifty. He wasn’t ready for that number yet.
More beautiful people. More torsos. But more faces, too. Smiling, confident men.
One profile caught his eye. Someone a little younger, well-built. He had a tank top on, a backwards ball cap, and a ridiculous smile. He looked like he’d been caught laughing by the camera. The edges of his hair were sandy blond, almost honeyed. His eyes weren’t blue, but they were still nice. He clicked on the guy’s picture tile.
A larger photo appeared, and a chat icon at the bottom of the image.
Online Now blinked at him.
He hesitated.
What was he doing? What on earth was he going to say to this guy? Maybe if he was younger and they met in person somewhere, he’d offer to buy him a drink.
Yeah, right. He’d never go up to a strange man in public. He was beginning to see the allure of apps like this. That ever-present fear—is he or isn’t he? Interested in men, friendly, nonviolent, homophobic, offended by his very existence?
But he still didn’t know what to say.
Start small. What would he say if he saw him at the coffee shop?
Tom clicked on the chat button and typed Hi.
He waited.
[No] came back.
No? What did that mean? He frowned.
I’m sorry?
[NO. No to you. No face pic. A dog, really? Nice metaphor, bitch. Just no.]
Tom sat back, stunned.
A new chat popped up. He clicked over to it.
[Are you so ugly that you have to put a dog pic up for your profile?]
He couldn’t breathe.
She’s my Basset Hound.
[You could at least post a picture of your body. Something that would make it worthwhile. I mean, I can close my eyes if your face is ugly, but if you got nothing else going for you, then…]
He clicked out of that chat.
He scrolled back through the main screen, looking at the tiles of men. He found a guy about his age, smiling into the camera, looking friendly. He wore a sweater that Tom knew he had hanging in his own closet. He clicked on his profile, and then on the chat button.
I’m new to this. Is everyone on here so… forward? Rude?
[Sorry]
He smiled. Finally. He could just talk to someone. Take an ice pick to his wall and chip out a small hole. He just wanted to talk to someone, anyone, and not feel so lonely for a half hour.
[I’m only into twinks. Not into old guys.]
Tom closed his eyes. He bowed his head, his chin touching his chest.
A new message notification sounded, a short drumbeat. He almost didn’t want to click it.
[Looking for men for PnP orgy. BB, breeding, and lots of ]
He frowned. What was an eggplant emoji—
Oh.
[Daddies wanted for hot, eager twinks.]
Well, maybe that other guy could link up with this orgy. He clicked out of the chat and logged off the app.
Etta Mae snored at the end of his bed. She ran in her sleep, her short legs and stubby paws scuffling against his comforter. Soft, sleepy barks rumbled out of her, her dreams too good to stay contained in her mind.
He tossed his phone on the bed next to him and slid down, lying on his back against the pillows. Okay. GrindMe wasn’t a good option. Almost perfect did come with a catch. The guys there were forward—shockingly forward—and… very into sex. Which wasn’t a bad thing. God, how confident was a man to plainly state that he was “only into twinks”? How much sex was a man his age getting? Going by the smile on his face, he was pretty damn fulfilled.
All these men, living their lives fearlessly. And him, alone and pathetic and cut off from seemingly the whole world. He was an alien to their culture, an outsider with his face pressed to the window as they lived and loved.
He rolled over, bunching his pillow under his head. What was Mike doing? What did he do on the weekends? How much fun did he have, with friends who loved him, supported him? He was probably the center of the party somewhere, laughing, having a great time. Finding another lover. Surrounded by life. Surrounded by happiness.
He stayed awake, watching headlights shiver over his walls, crisscross his ceiling, until he fell asleep hours before dawn.
Chapter 5
Washington DC was despicable in the heat.
Ever since he’d gotten the call, and had gotten on the plane to come to DC, he’d been miserable. Americans were insufferable, taking up too much room in the world, in their cities, and on the streets. Too loud by half, too fat by whole. The whole nation disgusted him.
He slammed the brakes on his rented sedan and barely squealed to a stop before plowing into the back of a minivan. Traffic on I-395 was a nightmare, as always. DC traffic was the worst, even worse than Moscow’s Garden Ring.
He just wanted to get out to the country, get out to the plot of land he’d been given access to. He could shoot out there, put together his Dragunov and sling hot lead down the homemade range. Shred a few paper targets. Maybe something else as well.
He had a place inside DC, a hole-in-the-wall above a pizza shop that always smelled like garlic. He kept a sleeping bag in the corner and a cooler full of water, and of course, his rifle. He could steal three different neighbors’ Wi-Fi.
The voice had also given him access to this piece of property far outside of DC. If he didn’t get out of the city, he’d let loose early, blow five people’s heads off before he even laid eyes on his target.
He hated these times most of all. The waiting. The living on another person’s timetable. Shadowing a target successfully took time, though, and especially a target of this caliber. He couldn’t just appear out of the blue. He had to establish himself in DC, put in the time to lessen the suspicion around him when the inevitable happened. He had to be just another neighbor, just another man people saw buying bananas and deodorant and milk.
He still charged quadruple his rates, for this idle time. Wasted time.
He was a hostage to time, chained to its slowness, the march of days and hours that moved for other people.
Soon, the voice tried to assuage him. Soon, it will be time. Just a little while longe
r.
Chapter 6
May 19th
Lincoln’s case ended, not with a bang, but a whimper, as the poem said. The jury convicted him on all counts. Tom, like always, visited the jurors privately after the verdict was read and the trial concluded. They didn’t have any questions for him, just a general expression of sadness mixed with anger that gangs and drugs were taking so many lives away.
Federal judges heard the full gamut of cases, but he had another drug case lined up after Lincoln’s, this time a smuggler caught flying cocaine in through Dulles airport. She was a permanent resident, laid off from her job and desperate for money. She’d swallowed thirty little balloons, but was caught after landing at Dulles.
Her first offense, and she was only a green card holder. He sentenced her to the minimum time he could, and looked down when she started crying after she was told she would be deported at the end of her sentence.
A two-defendant, eight-count financial crimes case was up next. White-collar crime, conspiracy, and embezzlement. His eyeballs bled every night as he read over the five-inch-thick Federal Rules of Evidence and fell asleep with the massive tome across his lap, his reading glasses sliding down his nose. He started dreaming in evidentiary rules, dream jurors, shirtless men watching a parade of evidence and testimony delivered by other mostly-naked men who made him stutter, made him stumble. One dream attorney gave an imaginary lap dance in the center of the courtroom while the proceedings droned on and on. Mike would appear, wearing just his lime-green tie and a pair of itty-bitty briefs, and he’d rescue Tom from the circus in his courtroom, pull him into his chambers, push him back across his desk—
He needed double sugar meltdown coffees to get through each morning.
By day, both the AUSA and the defense attorney practically shouted over each other, objections right and left. He had to rule on their outbursts every twenty minutes.
Mike waved hello to him each morning and poked his head in to say goodbye each evening. Tom had started growing a stack of law books on his desk, flagged with sticky notes and crammed with notepapers, at the start of the case. Every day he added more books, more research, and the stack grew higher and higher until he could barely see over it.
One day he heard Mike’s footsteps, but when he looked up, law books were all he saw.
He spent his lunch hour moving every book to new stacks against the wall and ended up sprawled on his carpet while he read case precedent and reviewed legal opinions. He sat cross-legged through the late afternoon with his back against his desk, chewing on a pencil.
Knocking broke his focus, his deep dive into a decision upheld by the second circuit in the last decade regarding evidence admissibility for embezzlement cases, testimony brought up in a former trial that ended with an acquittal. Words swam on the page, tiny font on onion-skin paper, flimsy like an old Bible. He blinked and looked up.
Mike stood in the doorway, grinning.
He spat his pencil out and smiled back. “Hey.”
“Hello yourself, Your Honor.” Mike’s eyes sparkled. “I have to say, I’ve never seen a judge sitting on his floor before.”
Tom straightened his tie, trying to collect his dignity. He set the book he was reading to one side. Rules of evidence could wait. “I realized I was building a fort on top of my desk. I figured you were about to tell me it was a safety hazard. That if you couldn’t see me from the doorway, then you’d have no idea if I was truly alive or dead behind all those books.”
Mike laughed. He held out his hand. “I’m not worried you’re going to drop dead on me. You’re too young for that.”
Warmth flooded Tom’s chest, and his shoulders straightened, drew back. He took Mike’s hand and clambered up. Mike’s grip was firm, his hold gentle. He thought Mike’s hands would be rough, but they were smooth, practically soft. Callused just a bit on his thumb and his finger. He took care of himself.
Mike let go first, and Tom turned to his desk, tossing his pencil on his blotter as he exhaled. “You think I’m young, huh?”
“You’re no Chief Judge Fink.”
Tom whistled and shook his head. “He is ninety-six-years-old. Incredible.”
“If I live to be ninety-six, I won’t still be working.”
“Oh, come on.” Tom leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms. “You’d be a great ninety-six-year-old marshal. Standing post in the courtroom, leaning on your cane with your badge and your gun. By then it will probably be a laser or a sonic-something, though. Something high tech that will make us feel really ancient.”
“And I’m sure I’d have to help you off the bench so you could go talk to the jury. You’ll keep doing that even when you’re ninety-six, I bet.”
He winked. “It’s just around the corner.”
“You’re not that old.”
How could he be both thrilled and depressed at the same time? Mike, saying he wasn’t that old, wasn’t a dinosaur, that he didn’t see him as an old man. He was no Chief Judge Fink. But, the truth of it was, he was still too old for Mike. Too old for popped collars and a smooth, sleek face. Too old for the men on GrindMe, even.
He took a breath and pasted his polite smile on, his judicial smile, the little quirk of his lips that he used in court. “How can I help you?”
Mike frowned and leaned back slightly, and a wariness settled in his eyes. “I… noticed you were here pretty late for the past two weeks. Just wanted to check in on you.”
His smile softened. “Thanks. I’m buried in a white-collar crime case. Embezzlement. I’m…” He nodded to the stacks. “Trying to get a handle on case law and precedent. The evidence is detailed, and a lot of it is challenged. I have to rule on evidence every day, and I want to make sure my opinions are well-grounded in legal fact. I don’t want the appeals court to overrule me because I didn’t know enough.”
“Sounds like a lot. Is it almost through?”
“Yes. Thank God.” Tom smiled as he crossed his arms. “I have never been so happy to see the end of a case.”
Mike’s small frown faded. “If you’re busy, I can leave you to your reading—”
“No, I need a break. I’m going cross-eyed.” He scrubbed his face, his fingers rubbing his eyelids and pressing on his eyeballs. What time was it, even?
“Can I repay your generosity, then?”
Tom opened one eye, staring at Mike.
“Can I buy you dinner?” Mike spoke like his offer was an easygoing nothing, like his words were the easiest thing in the world to say. Like they didn’t have any deeper, richer meaning to them. Like they weren’t what Tom had been longing to hear for twenty-five long years, and, more recently, for the past several weeks, ever since Mike had begun starring in Tom’s personal fantasies.
He boggled, blinking, frozen.
“I never got a chance to repay you for lunch. When we went out for BBQ?”
Mike was trying to jog his memory. Oh, he remembered. He remembered every moment of that lunch, of that day. Swallowing, Tom nodded. “You don’t have to pay me back—”
“I want to. Something simple. You haven’t eaten, and you said you need a break, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“What do you feel like? Mexican? Indian? BBQ again?”
A cold shot of tequila sounded great. Maybe six. If he could shoot them out of Mike’s belly button, even better. He squeezed his eyes closed. “Mexican sounds great. I could go for some tacos.” And a side order of sanity. “But, really, you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to, Judge Brewer.”
What could he say to that? He didn’t say anything, just grabbed his briefcase and his suit jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged into it, trying to shake out the wrinkles he’d put in his pants. “Lead the way.”
They ambled down the stairs side by side, Mike loose and relaxed like Tom rarely got to see. The Annex was closed, the doors locked, and only badged personnel were inside at this hour. Their shoes squeaked on the tile, dark wingtips and heavy s
oles clipping a steady pace. He kept shooting sidelong glances at Mike, listening as Mike summarized Judge Juarez’s high-risk trial, where he’d been since leaving Tom’s courtroom and the Lincoln case.
The evening sun cast long shadows across the judicial plaza and down the marble steps, a heavy glow shrouding the pavilion. The colors seemed heavier, the blue in the sky closer to the earth. Time slowed in the evening, the sun reluctant to set, the day holding on for just a few minutes longer. The air was warm, just on the verge of hot, brimming with humidity. Enough to feel it in the lungs and make the skin prickle. Golden light clung to Mike’s skin, caressing the planes of his face.
Mike led the way to the Mexican restaurant down the block, a cheery place in yellows and reds. Men clustered around the bar, watching the Nationals play the evening game, and families sat in booths along the wall. The hostess was a friendly young woman, her dark ponytail swishing from side to side as she said hello. Mike asked for a private table or booth against the wall, and she led them to a secluded corner booth.
Mike slid in on one side, his back to the wall, facing the restaurant. A lawman’s instinct, to survey the surroundings. Tom smiled as he sat down. He’d had enough lunches and dinners with FBI agents and police officers over the years, working as a prosecutor, to know that all federal agents and lawman types fought for the corner seat with the best vantage point of their surroundings. The gunfighter’s seat.
“Old habits die hard. I was a member of a task force for a long time.”
He’d been on the other side of the marshals, hunting fugitives. Where every marshal wanted to be, ostensibly. He heard Inspector Villegas talk about it in the break room, how he wanted to be “back in the thick of it” and he was “doing his time” at the courthouse, in judicial security, until he could transfer out. He even heard the marshals on prison transport talking about it, counting down the days until their time in the courthouse and the prisons was done.
“Why did you become a judicial security inspector?”
Mike perused his menu, pursing his lips. “Do you like queso?”