By this time, a few other patrons were stealing glances at us. We were becoming The Angry Fighting Couple That Everyone Stares at in the Restaurant. Only we weren’t a couple and we weren’t angry. At least, not with each other.
“I know,” I told him, pitching my voice low in an effort to quiet him down. Although I felt like screaming, too. “That’s what he told me. And Ansel , too. He had us al convinced.”
“Then what happened? ” Freddy asked loudly, rendering moot my efforts to calm him.
“I don’t know, ” I answered, a little overemphatical y myself.
Two guys at the next table looked at us and whispered. The older one was classic bear, ful beard, ful er bel y. He had the heavy build of a Colt model, as solid as a soldier from 300. He looked angry.
His younger, cuter, multiply pierced companion seemed to be laughing him off. The big guy, who reminded me of Smokey the Bear, only not as likable, shook his head. Congruent with his assigned role, he growled.
“Goddamn it,” Freddy cried, hitting our table with his fist. Every glass, plate, and utensil lifted a few inches and noisily fel to its new place.
“Hey, Salt and Pepper”—Smokey turned to us
—“could you two keep it down a little? We’re trying to have dinner here.”
I decided to ignore the racial slur in hope of avoiding a scene. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just a bad time
. . . we lost a friend today.”
Piercey Boy looked about to offer a sympathetic comment but he was beaten to the mike by Smokey.
“Yeah, wel , the way you two act, I’m surprised you didn’t lose all your friends.” Smokey chortled.
Freddy tensed his jaw. I could see he was holding himself back. Probably a good idea.
Piercey Boy hit his companion on the arm. “Their friend is dead, man. Show some respect.” Hmm, I thought, take the metal out of Piercey’s eyebrows, ears, and whatever that area between your nostrils is called, and he’d be a real honey.
“Like they showed us respect when they started their little show at the table next to ours? I didn’t come to this place to be insulted by twinks like Blondie and his pet monkey here.”
I knew Freddy was thinking exactly what I was: that Smokey deserved to be taken down hard for his obnoxious attitude. But tonight was not the night for it.
I think we would have stuck with that plan had Smokey not taken it to the next level.
“And you,” Smokey said, grabbing Piercey Boy’s forearm in his beefy paws, “better learn not to hit me.
Or correct me. Especial y in public.”
Piercey Boy tried to squirm out of Smokey’s grip.
“I’m sorry,” he whined. “I didn’t mean it.”
Whatever trip these two were on didn’t look like a whole lot of fun. At least not to me. But who knows what they were into?
How do you tell the difference between love and pain?
Smokey glowered. “You’re just getting yourself into more trouble, boy. Shut up.”
Piercey tried harder to pul his arm away. “Come on, man, you’re hurting me. This isn’t what I signed up for.”
A vein in Freddy’s forehead throbbed steadily in a way I’d never noticed before.
Smokey twisted Piercey’s arm a little. Piercey gasped in pain.
“Al right,” I said, “that’s enough. I’m sorry if we bothered you. Let’s just forget it.”
“Fuck you,” Smokey barked at me. He gave another quarter turn to Piercey’s arm. Piercey moaned.
I looked at Piercey. “Is this what you two do? I mean, I don’t want to get in the middle of—whatever it is you have going—but it looks like he’s real y hurting you.”
Piercey’s eyes were wide with alarm. “I . . .”
Smokey let go of Piercey’s arm and stood up. He leaned over our table. His face was inches from mine. “You little shit. Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to my boy?”
Freddy stood up, too, his chair fal ing back with a crash. I took a quick look around—yup, we had everyone’s attention now. Waiters whispered to each other with a what-do-we-donow urgency.
“I got this,” I told Freddy. I stood up, too.
Hey, let’s make it a standing party.
My head was a few inches south of Smokey’s chest. Hard as it was to be intimidating at this angle, I figured I’d give it a try.
“Listen, buddy,” I said, “I said we were sorry, OK?
So, let’s just go back to our dinners and move on.”
Smokey grabbed the front of my shirt in his huge hand. “Oh yeah, little man? Who’s gonna make me?”
Freddy stepped forward but I put up my hand. “I said I got this.
“Al right, Kong,” I said, “your friend may think it’s fun being pushed around by you, but you have five seconds to get your grubby hand off of me.”
“Or what?” Smokey snickered. “You gonna cal your mommy on me?”
Smokey may be a bad guy, but I didn’t hate him that much.
“Or,” I said sweetly, “I’m going to break off your arm and beat you to death with it.”
Smokey brought his hand up to smack me. “I am real y going to enjoy slapping the smart out of you, boy.” He pul ed me toward him.
I was always a little guy. Blond, cute, boyish. The kind of kid who couldn’t put up a fight if you paid him to.
A few years ago, I was in a near-empty subway except for some guys who decided I was a little gay-looking for their tastes. Two hours later, I was in the hospital with no wal et, multiple bruises, and a cracked rib.
I don’t remember anything that happened between the time those guys started walking toward me on the E train and when I woke up in my hospital bed.
But I do remember how I felt when I woke up. I remember the pain and the humiliation and the decision I made never to be a victim again.
Little as I was, I needed an edge. I was already strong and limber from years of gymnastics, but that wasn’t enough to protect me. So, I took some self-defense courses at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center. I fol owed them up with advanced training in one of the principles they taught at the center, Krav Maga.
Krav Maga is a fighting technique initial y developed for self-defense in World War Two by Jews in Czechoslovakia who were harassed by Nazi youth. It was later refined and expanded upon by the Haganah, an Israeli defense force.
Let me give you a piece of advice: Don’t fuck with the Israelis.
Krav Maga isn’t a sport like karate or an art like Judo. Krav Maga is about survival. It’s about doing whatever is necessary to neutralize your opponent and take him down fast. It teaches you how to move quickly from defense to offense, to employ the aid of any available objects in your vicinity, and to go for your attacker’s most vulnerable areas first.
It’s not pretty and it’s not fair.
But it works.
Smokey wanted to pul me closer? Fine. I went with it, not only al owing myself to be pul ed toward him but actively moving in. It caught Smokey off guard; he expected me to pul away. I felt him stiffen in surprise. Good.
We al have hard and soft parts. It was time to introduce some of Smokey’s squishy bits to some of my hard ones.
I brought my knee up to meet his bal s. The air whooshed out of him. “Fuck,” he cried, instinctively bending over at the waist. “You little . . .”
But I was denied the pleasure of hearing whatever Smokey was about to say because as he was leaning down, I was jumping up. The top of my skul is hard, what’s inside his mouth, not so much. Which is why it must have hurt like a motherfucker when I hit his jaw with my head and he almost bit off his own tongue.
Now, he didn’t know which way to bend. He let go of me and stepped back. One hand went to cradle his bal s, the other flew to his mouth.
I checked out Piercey. Was he going to rush to his boyfriend’s defense? Apparently not. In fact, he was smiling. I smiled back.
Smokey noticed I was looking away and decided to make his move. He bent f
orward to rush me. Too bad for him, he was slow. Whether natural y or because his testicles had swol en to the size of ostrich eggs, I couldn’t say.
You know what real y hurts? Getting hit in the kidney. Now, Smokey knew, too. He doubled over again.
Time for my hard elbow to meet the back of his exposed neck. I brought it down decisively. Smokey crumpled to his knees.
I brought my leg back enough to let him see how wel positioned I was to kick him in the head.
“Enough?” I asked.
He nodded. Gently, as if getting ready for a nap, he lowered himself to the ground, curled into a fetal position, and whimpered. I was pretty sure he wasn’t playing possum, but I kept my eyes on him, anyway.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve taken down a big guy.
As much as I hated to admit it, it never stopped being fun. I felt better than I had al day.
There was a murmur of voices as everyone went back to their meals. That’s New York for you. When the show’s over, it’s over.
“Why is it,” Freddy asked, “that I love seeing you do that so much?”
“Me, too!” Piercey gushed. “That was awesome. ”
Freddy looked at him. “So, what’s the deal with you two? You going to take him home and kiss his boo-boos?”
“You kidding?” Piercey asked. “It was a first date.
Last date, as it turns out. We met on BearTrap.com. I like a bit of rough, but this guy’s just plain rude.”
“There’s never an excuse for rudeness,” Freddy agreed. “Good manners are important even in S and M. Especially in S and M, now that I think of it.”
Piercey squeezed Freddy’s prodigious bicep.
“What about you, stud? You like it rough?”
Freddy put an arm around Piercey. “I throw it down like it’s going out of town,” he asserted.
I didn’t even know what that meant.
This was usual y the point of the evening where Freddy made his excuses and walked off with the flavor of the hour.
I was stil watching Smokey, but I felt Freddy’s eyes on me.
“But not tonight,” he told Piercey. “Tonight my friend needs me.”
Wel , that was a pleasant surprise. I smiled.
“But that’s just tonight,” Freddy said. “Give me your number because tomorrow I might need you, baby.”
That’s my Freddy.
21
I Got Plenty of Nothing
Ten minutes later, Freddy and I were at The Scoop, a local ice cream shop that makes its own New York–inspired flavors. Since our dinner had been rudely interrupted, it was only logical we skip right to dessert. At least it seemed that way to us.
Tomorrow, I’d pay for it on the treadmil .
The Scoop had a laid-back, downtown vibe that perfectly suited our mood. The lights were dim and the music was mel ow jazz. We took a quiet banquette in the corner so we could talk.
Freddy enjoyed a Broadway Banana Split, with once scoop each of Chelsea Chocolate, Lickin’
Center, and Al That Razz. I had a Subway Sundae with Verrazano Vanil a and Whip Me Cream.
“Maybe Rueben’s overdose wasn’t accidental,”
Freddy said.
“Ansel told me he had enough heroin in him to kil three people,” I answered.
“Exactly. But Rueben was an experienced user, right? He would have known how much he could take.”
“You think he kil ed himself on purpose?”
“You knew him better than I did.” Freddy might not have eaten his pasta earlier, but he attacked his ice cream with a singleminded ferociousness not seen since Jaws.
I thought for a moment. Rueben had been through a lot. He was a pretty tough customer. Yeah, he’d come to depend on Ansel , but so much so that he’d commit suicide over a single spat? I could see him storming out of Ansel ’s apartment, but only to intentional y overdose half a block away?
“It’s a stretch,” I admitted.
“So, if he didn’t kil himself, whether accidently or on purpose . . .”
“He was murdered?”
“Maybe Ansel was madder at Rueben than he led you to believe,” said Freddy, through a mouthful of cold heaven. “He could have kil ed Rueben.”
“Possible,” I said. “Or maybe Rueben’s death is related to the others.”
Freddy put down his spoon. Anytime he did that during dessert, I knew that meant he was about to say Something Important.
“That’s it”—he pointed his finger at me—“you’re getting out of the business now. ”
“Rueben wasn’t kil ed on the job, Freddy.”
“No, but how many dead boys have to pile up before you figure out that you’re not exactly in the safest of professions?”
“People die al the time, Freddy. And we don’t even know that Rueben’s death is related to the others. Or that any of them are related at al .”
Freddy’s jaw moved back and forth, but he didn’t say anything. I could see he was furious.
“Why the sudden freak out, anyway?” I asked. “You already knew about Brooklyn Roy and Sammy White Tee. Not to mention Randy. What makes Rueben’s death such a big deal for you?”
“Because I knew him, you idiot. I was just talking to him two days ago. This is al getting too close to home, Kevin. If anything happened to you . . .”
“Nothing’s going to—”
“I couldn’t take it, OK? If anything happened to you, I . . .” Freddy’s voice trailed off and he shook his head. “You’re the most important person in my life, you stupid asshole.” Freddy picked up his spoon and jabbed it angrily into his ice cream. But he didn’t eat.
I felt myself tearing up. Freddy wasn’t exactly the type to talk about his feelings. The flame between us burned out a long time ago, but the embers stil burned hot. We may not have been lovers, not anymore, but there was stil a lot of love between us.
Perhaps Freddy and I were going to spend the rest of our lives in some in-between state. Not quite lovers but more than friends. We needed a word for it. Frovers. Lends.
Maybe once we final y have equal marriage rights, we’l cal our spouses “husbands” or “wives” and reserve the word “partners” for couples like me and Freddy. ’Cause that’s what we felt like. Partners in crime.
Or was that al ?
I slid next to him on the banquette and put my head on his shoulder. He put an arm around me and stroked my hair. We sat like that for a few minutes.
Then he took his arm away and started eating again.
Whatever crisis or opportunity we might have awkwardly been heading toward had been averted. I scooted back to my bowl.
“OK, so we’re back to square one,” Freddy said.
“If we’re going to save your sorry ass, we better figure out if someone’s real y offing these boys.”
“Al righty then,” I said, happy to have the business of murder take our minds off the business of our questionable relationship. “Tony tel s me the first rule in any case is to ask ‘who benefits?’ ”
“From kil ing male hookers?”
I nodded.
“OK, I’l play. Let’s see . . . a pervert. Some homo Jack the Ripper. He gets off on kil ing pretty boys.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But wouldn’t you think he’d kil them during sex or something? If it’s a pervy thing, I mean.”
“What, I’m the expert on sex crimes now? I don’t know. Ask your boyfriend.”
I was pretty sure if I told Tony I thought someone was kil ing male sex workers, he’d handcuff me to my bed. But not in the fun I’m-putting-a-blindfold-on-you-and-you-have-to-guess-wheremy-lips-are-going-to-land-next kind of way. More like the you’re-not-leaving-this-house-until-you-promise-me-you’l never-hustle-again way.
No sense getting him worried just yet.
“Let me think about that,” I said. “Who else benefits from the death of working boys?”
“A closeted client who doesn’t want word to get out about his extracurricular activities? He hire
s a hooker, then offs him. It’s a one hundred percent guarantee of confidentiality, right?”
“Most of my clients are closeted,” I said. “None of them have tried to kil me.”
“Yet,” Freddy added reassuringly.
“It seems thin,” I told him.
“Maybe someone famous,” Freddy offered.
“Someone in the public eye with a lot to lose.”
“Being caught with a hooker doesn’t end your career. Just look at Hugh Grant.”
“No, I said someone famous. ” Freddy drew out the word like I didn’t know what it meant.
“Hugh Grant is famous.”
“He is? Who is he?”
“A British actor.”
“Darling, the only British actor I care about is Robert Pattinson. He can suck on my neck any day.
Oh, and that guy who plays James Bond.”
“Daniel Craig.”
“Daniel Craig,” Freddy sighed. “Now, there’s an English muffin I’d like to toast and butter. Talk about your nooks and crannies. Whoever managed to write cock and bal torture into a mainstream film like Casino Royale deserves an Academy Award.”
“We’re getting off track.”
“Right. Fine, so what do we have so far?”
“Jack the Ripper and Hugh Grant.”
“Hmmmm . . .” Freddy tilted his bowl to his mouth and slurped the last of his ice cream. I wondered if finishing mine could real y be made up for by forty-five minutes of aerobics.
“I know!” Freddy jumped in his seat like an excited third-grader with the right answer. “You!”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you benefit. So do al the other hustlers, right? Kil off your competition and whoever’s left standing gets to charge whatever he wants. It’s the law of supplies and Depends.”
“That’s ‘demands,’ not ‘Depends.’ Depends are a brand of adult diaper.”
“Like you never had a client who was into that.”
Freddy sneered.
I considered Freddy’s suggestion. It didn’t strike me as much of a business model. “I don’t think we’re ever going to run out of boys who’l peddle their papayas for a couple of hundred bucks.”
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