Pretty Pretty Boys

by Gregory Ashe

  “Yeah,” Nico said, “he’s definitely making an ass of himself.”

  Hazard fought the urge to tell him to shut up.

  As Hazard and Nico crossed the room, men and women waved at Nico, and a few called out greetings. Their eyes bored into Hazard, and he knew the rumors had already started. It would have been one thing for Hazard to come to the Pretty Pretty and collect Somers—rumors, sure, but they were partners and they had a reason to be here. Showing up here with Nico, on the other hand—and after dinner at a nice Italian restaurant—guaranteed that everyone was going to start talking.

  “I’m getting a lot of thumbs-up over here,” Nico said.

  This time, Hazard didn’t bother to fight the urge. “Shut up.”

  Nico just laughed.

  “Excuse me,” Hazard said as he reached the edge of Somers’s crowded admirers. He didn’t wait for the men to move, but instead, he shoved through them, eliciting shocked cries and mock gasps of pain. Behind him, he heard Nico whispering explanations and apologies, calling most of the men by name, trying to smooth ruffled feathers.

  “Hazard,” Somers said, holding up his drink and grinning. “You got here just in time. We’re playing marry, fuck, kill.”

  “And Detective Somerset,” said one pouty, long-haired diva, throwing Hazard a death look, “was just about to take his turn.”

  “Let Detective Hazard have a chance,” Somers said, slinging an arm around Hazard’s shoulder and pulling him down to the stool next to him. “He’s going to have better answers.”

  The pouty diva pouted even more—and looked like he’d be willing to kill Hazard if it gave him a shot at Somers—but the rest of the crowd cheered and laughed.

  “Fine,” the diva said, planting hands on hips. “Marry, fuck, kill. Christian Bale, Chris Hemsworth, and . . .” The diva’s pouty lips tightened into a nasty smile. “Detective Somerset.”

  Somers roared with laughter, squeezing his arm around Hazard’s shoulder and almost dragging him off the stool. “Come on, Em,” Somers said. “Who’s it going to be?”

  Em. The nickname buzzed inside Hazard’s head. Jesus Christ, had Somers just called him that in front of strangers—strangers who were staring at the two of them, to put it crudely, like a wet dream come to life. The music, pounding so hard that it had crawled inside Hazard’s head, made it hard to think. Pressed up against Somers’s chest, Hazard could smell his sweat and the musk of cologne. Hazard flung off Somers’s arm and got to his feet.

  “We’re here to ask some questions,” Hazard said. “Not to play games.”

  Somers made a disappointed noise. “Em, come on—”

  “Unless you have relevant information about the hate crimes that have been occurring in Wahredua, please move along and enjoy your evenings.”

  Disappointed—and artificially tan—faces stared back at him.

  “Now, please,” Hazard said, clapping his hands for emphasis. The crack seemed to have its effect; the men, throwing glances at each other in a mixture of what looked like frustration and irritation, began to separate. Hazard could hear several of them muttering under their breath.

  “This is the new cop? The one who’s supposed to be gay?”

  “What a ball-buster.”

  “He looks mean. Maybe Roger would like him.”

  “No, thank you. Give me that other one anytime, though.”

  “Why is Nico with him? Do you think he—”

  Hazard scanned the crowd, his face fixed, meeting hostile gazes, until the men had dispersed. Nico lingered, his face revealing efforts to conceal embarrassment and something else, maybe anger. Somers’s expression was neutral, but he pounded back the rest of his drink. As Hazard watched him drink, he thought about what Mikey had told him: that Somers had been there when they tortured Jeff. That Somers had been part of it. Somers had known, all this time, and he’d never said anything. Somers had fucking known.

  “That’s one way to make an entrance,” Somers said, settling his glass down with a rattle. “Those guys—”

  “What? Besides buying you drinks and smiling at you and telling you how handsome and smart and funny you are, what? Did they tell you anything about the attacks? Did they say that they’d seen Fukuma or Chendo or someone from the Volunteers? Let’s hear it, Somers. What did you get out of them except another chance to cocktease?”

  “I was just talking to them,” Somers said. “It was no big deal, Em—”

  “Jesus, stop calling me that.”

  Somers flinched. He got to his feet slowly, and then he threw a crooked glance at Nico. “Give us a minute, would you?”

  “No,” Hazard said.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Then let’s talk. He’s here because of this fucking case, so let’s talk about that.”

  “Maybe we should talk somewhere else,” Nico said, breaking in. He tilted his head, and Hazard noticed the clusters of people watching them. He wanted to swear, but he swallowed the words and managed to nod.

  “Manager was letting me use his office to talk earlier,” Somers said, his voice still taut with anger. “We can use it again.”

  He led the way down a cramped, utilitarian hallway and rapped on a door marked Manager. Bradley Sherrill, who looked like he probably doubled as a personal trainer, grinned and smiled and nodded to everything Somers said before letting them use the small office. The air tasted like old cigarettes, and the walls were covered with framed photographs of different events at the Pretty Pretty. Somers, to Hazard’s surprise, took the chair behind the desk, and Hazard and Nico dropped into the remaining seats.

  “Well? What’s going on? Why’d you show up here and chew my ass?”

  Because, Hazard wanted to say, you helped kill Jeff Langham. Instead, though, he said to Nico, “Tell him.”

  So Nico told Somers about the mysterious change in Chendo’s texts, and he showed the video and the map that tracked the phone. When Nico had finished, Somers watched the video again and then a third time. He tried passing the phone to Nico, but Hazard snatched it and pocketed it first.

  “Evidence,” he said.

  “So you think Chendo killed Armistead?” Somers said. Then he glanced at Nico. “Maybe we should talk about this alone.”

  “Ask him whatever you need to ask him,” Hazard said. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Somers looked ready to argue, but then he shook his head. “All right. I talked to some of the boys here, and they told me they never saw Chendo with a bald guy.”

  “He hooked up with him outside,” Hazard said, “in an alley—”

  “I asked about that. It’s a lie.”

  “What?”

  “People knew who Chendo was. He made a pretty public figure, isn’t that right?”

  Nico was nodding. “Not just in the club. He did some activism work up on campus for a professor. Oh, you know her—Fukuma, you mentioned her earlier. Anyway, after he did that, he started acting like he was the biggest deal in gay rights since Milk. A lot of people didn’t like that attitude, but Chendo always makes sure of one thing: everyone knows who he is.”

  “Well, there you go,” Somers said, rocking back in his seat. “People remember that night—it was a big deal, the police showing up, Chendo claiming someone had threatened to kill him. People remember that night. But nobody remembers a bald guy with a swastika tattoo. And nobody remembers Chendo leaving the club and heading to a back alley.”

  “So they missed something. Or their memories are poor; that’s a problem with eyewitnesses—”

  “But they do remember,” Somers said, speaking over Hazard, “that Chendo Cervantes had a big fight with someone inside the club.”

  “What?” Nico said. “Who?”

  “A guy wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Yes, even inside the club. Yes, even at night. They were together that whole night, tucked away in one of those booths at the back. All over each other—sorry,” he added to Nico, “but that might be important.”

  “Oh, it’
s definitely important,” Nico said, his features tight. “The guy with the baseball cap, does he have a name?”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you. Do you have any idea who that could have been?”

  Nico shook his head.

  “Do you know the identity of anyone else that Chendo might have been involved with?”

  Another negative.

  Hazard said, “Bald men can wear baseball caps too.”

  “I know,” Somers said, “but the point is that nobody saw a bald man with a swastika tattoo. One last question, Mr. Flores: Fukuma, the one you said Chendo worked for. Can you tell me more about that?”

  “What?” Nico said, the anger in his expression showing that his thoughts were still directed somewhere else. “Oh. That. I don’t know, Chendo took a class from her, started volunteering. He really impressed her. That’s what he made it sound like, at least, and then things got really busy and he was always helping her with stuff.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “I don’t know. Political stuff. Marches, protests, flyers.”

  “He worked a lot of late nights.”

  “Yeah. And you don’t have to be so subtle. I know he was fucking around a lot of those nights.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Flores.”

  Nico glanced at Hazard. Hazard wasn’t happy about letting Nico go—he was a buffer for Hazard’s anger at Somers—but he knew the next part of their conversation wasn’t meant for Nico. “Stick around; we might have some more questions.”

  “And I need a ride home,” Nico said with a soft smile. He slipped out of the manager’s office, leaving the two detectives alone.

  “You gave him a ride over here?” Somers asked. The playfulness had left his eyes, and he looked, more than anything, worried. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “He wouldn’t surrender the phone unless I brought him, and I didn’t know if we had the time or probable cause for a warrant.”

  “Sorry about tonight. I had a drink, and the guys are pretty fun just to shoot the bull with. I’d finished my questions and I was waiting for you to get here.”

  “Forget it. What do you think about Chendo?”

  “I think it’s interesting.”

  “But you don’t think he’s involved.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Hazard’s knuckles whitened as he clamped down on the chair. “Why don’t you say what you think, then?”

  “Jesus, what got into you tonight?” When Hazard didn’t answer, Somers shook his head and said, “This stuff, what you got on Chendo, it’s good. And it looks convincing as hell.”

  “His phone was at that trailer right around when the fire started.”

  “That’s what I mean. And then the bizarre texts, the video of the fight, the fact that he’s on the run. All of that puts a bead on him.”

  “But you want to know who the other guy was.”

  “Exactly.” Somers was nodding, becoming more animated, his face lighting up with interest and eagerness. “Lady Mabbe saw two people at the trailer, both bald men, both with swastika tattoos. Either one of those could be Armistead. Probably is Armistead.”

  “So who’s the other?”

  Somers nodded again. “The way I see it, we’ve still got multiple possibilities: Fukuma hired someone to kill Armistead. That explains our second bald man, dressed like a Volunteer, who lures Armistead out to the trailer, kills him, and sets the fire. That does raise another question: why would Armistead go along with the act? Naomi all but confirmed that Armistead would have known the man was an impostor.”

  “That’s a question we need Naomi to answer,” Hazard said. “Chendo could have been the one to kill Armistead. He sounds like he was Fukuma’s fanatic. He could shave his head, put on a henna tattoo. It might not trick Armistead, but it would fool someone from a distance.”

  “Right. Another possibility, Chendo kills Armistead.”

  “Ok,” Hazard said. “We know Chendo was threatened. We know about the fight that he recorded. It sure as hell sounds like somebody died at the end of that recording. In that case, our second bald man could still be Chendo. Maybe he’s playing dress up for Armistead and then things go south. But what’s with all the accelerant in the trailer? Was Chendo planning on killing him?”

  “Good questions, and no answers.” Somers paused. “Our third possibility is that Armistead is alive and on the run somewhere. He killed someone, got some help from a Volunteer body, burned the body, and ran.”

  “Who? Chendo?”

  “Chendo claimed a bald man with a swastika tattoo threatened his life. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”

  “So the person in that recording, the one who goes silent, that could be Chendo. But what about the texts? What about the phone’s location records?”

  “Someone trying to cover his tracks?”

  Hazard shook his head. “By drawing more attention to Chendo with all those weird texts? Throw the phone in the river and be done with it.”

  “I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”

  “All right. So we have some ways of narrowing this down. First, we could identify our victim. I asked Cravens for Armistead’s dental records today.”

  “No luck.”

  “What?”

  “No records. None of the local dentists ever had Charles Armistead as a patient. Cravens called earlier to tell me.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Somers sighed. “I wish. We can try calling some of the dentists in Columbia, Jeff City, hell, even St. Louis and KC, but talk about a needle in the haystack.”

  “Ok. So our other options are to find Chendo, find Armistead, or find the third man. The other bald man. We’ve got a good lead on Chendo—the phone. We’ve got nothing on Armistead and nothing on our third man. I say we track down Chendo and see what he can tell us.”

  Somers nodded. “Something else came up tonight while I was doing interviews. About Fukuma.”

  “What?”

  “Two things.”

  Hazard spoke, already knowing what Somers was going to say. “She was here on Monday.”

  With a hard smile, Somers nodded. “Bingo. Several people ID’d her as being in the Pretty Pretty on Monday night.”

  “The same night she told us she was still in Manhattan at her convention.”

  “The club has security cameras on the outside, and they run on a week loop. We can get a warrant and see if she shows up on any of them, but I think we should go ahead and pull her in tonight.”

  “What was the second thing?”

  “Remember her eyewitnesses? The ones she said told her that Armistead had assaulted them, but they wouldn’t tell the police. Guess who those two ladies are.”

  Realization clicked. “You’re joking.”

  “Nope. Fukuma is the eyewitness. And her girlfriend—ex-girlfriend, I should say. A couple of the guys saw it all happen. It was a Saturday night, and the line for the club was long. Fukuma and her girlfriend were waiting. Armistead showed up, drunk and looking for a fight. He decided to pick on two women, which tells you that he was an equal-opportunity piece of shit.” Somers stopped here, his eyes bright with something he was keeping back.

  “Well,” I said. “Out with it.”

  “That night, the assault, it didn’t end with two women getting beaten up. It ended with Fukuma pulling a gun, chasing Armistead for two blocks, and screaming that she was going to hunt him down and kill him.”

  “Guess she neglected to tell us that part of the story.” Hazard grimaced and got to his feet. “Let’s bring her in and see what she has to say.”

  IT WAS LATE, AND THE STATION had a brilliant kind of emptiness: the fluorescent lights shivering against the blond wood and the worn linoleum, the copiers and fax machines silent, and only the smell of burnt coffee to remind Hazard of what the building was like during the day. It was different, in that way, from St. Louis; in St. Louis, the department had been so big that the building had ne
ver emptied and grown quiet. There was something strange about being inside the old school building at this hour; Hazard thought uncomfortably of the angel on the station’s facade, the angel who was trying to spear the devil, and the devil having one hell of a laugh about it. Hazard wasn’t a superstitious man, but right then, Hazard wondered if it was a sign.

  For the last five minutes, Hazard and Somers had stood outside the interview room where Fukuma sat, waiting for her lawyer. In his hands, Hazard held the incident report for Armistead’s assault on the two women. They had missed it earlier because neither woman was named in the report.

  “Jesus, didn’t you and Upchurch ask any questions?” Hazard said, slapping the folder into Somers’s chest. “A third-grader could have dug up more information.”

  Somers flushed, caught the folder and flipped through it. “Nobody would talk. Nobody would say anything. Upchurch was supposed to follow up with one girl who promised she had something for us, but—” Somers scanned the file again. “Yeah, see. He called her, and she changed her story.”

  Hazard snorted. There was shoddy police work, and there was shitty police work. This felt like the latter. Before he had to say anything, though, a balding man with a neatly combed gray fringe hustled down the hallway. He wore a suit that looked expensive and shoes that probably cost more than just buying your own cow. His name was Pope, and after a few questions, he accompanied them into the interview room.

  “Ms. Fukuma,” Hazard began. “I want to let you know that our conversation is being recorded and I want to make sure, with your attorney here, that you understand your rights.”

  Pope leaned towards Fukuma, but she waved him away. She looked particularly fierce tonight, with her short, dark hair spiked up, and she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans that would have fit in with any biker crowd: lots of painful-looking studs and chains. “What the hell is this? I already talked to you, and now you drag me in here in the middle of the night. This is harassment. And profiling. I’m going to have your badges, and then I’ll have your asses in civil—”