This was a delicate subject. Not so long ago, Stanley had thought about cheating. Had seriously thought about it, had even gotten into the illicit bed, but had found at the last moment that he couldn’t do the deed. It had been the worst crisis of their time together, and he had felt for a long time since as if he were walking on eggs. But Tom had never brought it up, seemed willing not only to forgive, but to forget—which to Stanley’s way of thinking was the harder part.
Tom took a while to think about the question before he answered. “Not really,” he said finally.
“What’s that mean, not really?” Stanley gave him a suspicious look. “It took you long enough to come up with that.”
Tom shrugged. “There was one time. Somebody wanted to. He didn’t exactly say so, but we both knew that was where it was headed, and I thought about it for maybe a tenth of a second. But I knew it wouldn’t work.”
“Who was this somebody?”
Tom gave him a look that said he didn’t like the question and didn’t intend to answer it. “Nobody you’d know,” he said, in a tone of finality.
“Well, maybe….”
“Drop it, Stanley,” Tom said in a brook-no-argument voice.
So Stanley dropped it—but he couldn’t help wondering.
BY THE time they got back to the Inn, the pool was lined with glistening, half-naked bodies, every table occupied.
The dancers were already out in force at the club. Chris was there, dancing with Eddie. Someone asked Tom to dance, and when he declined, asked Stanley, and they moved on to the floor, leaving Tom alone at the bar.
Tom ordered a Dos Equis, thought longingly about that special brew at Nakamura’s. Probably they had it here too—but it was out of his class. Even if they comped it, what was the point of getting into the habit? He wasn’t a hundred-bucks-a-bottle kind of guy. The only really rare, really precious thing in his life was Stanley.
Someone approached and clapped a hearty hand on his shoulder. To his surprise, when he looked, Tom found himself facing the cowboy, Randy Patterson.
“So, no hard feelings, right?” Randy said. “About the other night? The race horse?”
Tom considered the question. He’d been righteously sore at the time, but since then he had decided it was as much his fault. Stanley was right. He should have turned down the offer of a drink in the first place. What could it mean except someone was hitting on him?
“No. No harm done,” he said. “But I’d have been seriously pissed if I’d taken a swig of that.”
Randy laughed. “Seriously pissed. You making a joke?”
Tom had to laugh with him. He took their moment of shared laughter to look the guy over a bit more carefully than he had the other time. He was older than Tom had thought at first. Good-looking, in a desert-weathered way, his skin ochre-colored, lines around his oddly tilted eyes. Heinz 57, he thought. Typical Southern California.
“You grow up here?” Tom asked aloud.
“Palm Springs? Nah, in Los Angeles. Moved here ten years ago, something like that. Came to visit somebody, decided to stay on.”
“Los Angeles. Let me guess—you were in the movies?”
Patterson looked surprised. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, everybody in Los Angeles is in the industry, so they say. That’s what they call it there, isn’t it, the industry?”
“Exactly.” Patterson’s laugh this time had a bitter ring to it. “The fucking industry. You’re right too, it seems like everybody is in it, even when they aren’t. So, what, you think I’m an actor?”
“Just a hunch. Lots of good-looking people all the time flocking to LA, hoping to be the next star. You’re as good-looking as most of them.”
Patterson’s eyes brightened. “You think so?” He looked around. “With all the beauties here?”
Tom shrugged. “Ah, hell, you can’t go by me. I’m no judge. Not when it comes to guys.”
Patterson sighed. “Well, thanks, it’s nice of you to say it, but no, I never went that route. Never really had any desire to, to be honest. I guess you could say my mom was in the business, though. If you stretched the point a little. She worked at Fox, and yeah, now that you put it that way, she did refer to herself as ‘in the industry.’ Which sounded good, but the truth was, she worked in the mailroom. And from time to time, she got to date a few second-stringers.”
“What about your dad?”
“My old man went missing in action,” Randy said quietly. “Right from the get-go.”
“Ah.” Tom nodded.
Randy’s look and his tone were defensive. “Look, it was the seventies. People didn’t take getting married all that seriously. Women were feeling their independence. Nobody thought overmuch about a single mother raising a kid.”
Tom put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I didn’t mean to sound disapproving. I knew a lot of those single mothers, and most of them did a damn good job.”
“She did. And I guess it’s not really fair to say my old man was missing in action either. He was already married, but he was up front about it when they started dating, and when she found out I was comin’ to town instead of Santa, he helped her. He didn’t just walk away. He saw we were taken care of. A lot of guys didn’t do that.”
“You know who he was?”
Randy spread his hands out, palm up. “So, what, I’m a suspect now? I mean, the way you’re throwing the questions at me.”
“Sorry. No, I was just making conversation. It’s a hazard of the job, I guess. You talk to people, you end up asking them questions.”
“It’s okay. Look, about the other night. I meant it when I said you were hot. In case you would like to….”
“Sorry, I’m spoken for.”
Patterson glanced in Stanley’s direction. “I wondered. He doesn’t look like he’d be your type.”
“He isn’t, I guess, if you want to think of it that way. But he’s what I’ve got. Or has got me, depending on how you want to look at it.”
“Uh-huh,” Patterson said, nodding. He looked Tom up and down. “You’re really into women, right?”
“I was. But that was… well, before.”
Patterson looked again in Stanley’s direction. “Yeah, love changes things, doesn’t it?”
“Are you in love?”
Patterson looked back at him, his eyes narrowed. “Who, me? No way. Things get too messy.”
“They sure did for Barry Palmer.”
“You think that was about love?”
“It was about something. And his boyfriend, Jeff—”
“Jeff Whiting?”
“That his name? All I had was Jeff.”
“Well, if you’re talking about Barry’s boyfriend, that’s who it was, Jeff Whiting. Good-looking dude—well, shit, he would be, wouldn’t he—but a little weird, you ask me.”
“We heard he was into the kinky stuff.”
“Way kinky. My… well, a friend, said he liked to be choked?”
The tone of his voice made it more of a question than a statement. Trying to pump me? Tom wondered. “That’s what the forensic said. Said it looked like he was in the habit.”
Patterson’s eyebrow went up. “Jeff’s dead?” He didn’t sound, to Tom, as surprised as he might have been.
Tom nodded. “You didn’t know?”
Patterson ignored that question. “And you talked to forensic? I didn’t think they let civilians in on stuff like that.”
“We went with Hammond, from Palm Springs homicide. He’s kind of given us his blessing to look around.”
Patterson nodded knowingly. “And? What exactly do you see, with your looking around?”
Tom half smiled. “To be honest, at the moment I see a cowboy who’s awful curious.”
Patterson smiled back. “We all are,” he said, totally unembarrassed.
Tom was wondering what Bryce could find out for him about Randy Patterson. Bryce was in San Francisco, but he almost certainly had contacts with the LAPD too
. Cops thrived on contacts.
And Patterson was making him curious. Something more than just pecker itch going on with him.
Chapter Eighteen
PATTERSON GLANCED past Tom, and his eyes went wide. “Excuse me,” he said. “I got to see a man about a horse.” And with that, he was gone. The flickering lights and the thick crowd made it easy to disappear in a few seconds.
Tom looked over his shoulder to see what had spooked Patterson and saw Detective Hammond at the door, looking around. Hammond spotted him and came across the dance floor, dodging bodies in motion. Stanley caught sight of Hammond and, abandoning his dance partner, hurried after him.
“We’ve got another one,” Hammond told them.
“Another body?”
“Yep. They’re piling up. And I’m getting a lot of heat.”
“Who was it this time?”
“We make him a Mario Alvarez. He’s a security guard. Want to make a guess where he worked?”
“Here,” Tom said.
And Stanley added, “At the Inn. We already knew that.”
“You knew the guy?”
“No, but we heard the name,” Stanley said. “There’s a security room just inside the gates. They buzz you in. That’s where this Mario worked.”
“So, let me guess,” Tom said, “is this another snake bite?”
“Not this time. Far from it. His throat was cut—really cut, like his head was all but severed, just hanging on by a bit of flesh and gristle. A clean cut, too, no hacking at it. Someone with a sharp knife who knew what he was doing.”
“Interesting.” Tom was thinking about all the blades at Nakamura’s house. Was that a connection? But lots of people had knives. It didn’t prove anything. “Where was he found? Here?”
“No, in an alley downtown, behind a bar—but it doesn’t look like that’s where he was killed.”
“So maybe he was killed here,” Tom said. “Maybe even out in that security shack.”
“Maybe. We didn’t look there before. No reason to. Nothing to connect it to the other murders.”
“Barry Palmer,” Stanley said. “We turned up a witness who saw the security guard giving Palmer head. In the security office.”
“’Zat so?” Hammond thought about that information.
“And that in itself is odd, if you think about it,” Stanley added. “Considering that the Palmer kid was high rent. More than a security guard could afford.”
“Hey, what’s a little lovin’ between friends, right?”
“Only they weren’t friends,” Stanley said. “So far as we can determine.”
Hammond sighed. “Well, it’s probably too much to hope for now, that we’d find any kind of evidence out there, but for sure we need to check it out.”
“Was there anybody there when you came in?” Tom asked.
“The gate was open. I guess they don’t have a backup.”
Hammond turned his head to look at the bottles behind the bar. He signaled the bartender and ordered a shot of Jack Daniels, but when it came, he let it sit atop the bar, studied it with an uncertain look. Finally, he picked it up, lifted it to his nose to sniff it—and dumped it on the floor, setting the empty glass back on the wooden counter.
Frederick hurried up to them just then, his sequined caftan a glittering cloud billowing behind him. His face was frozen into a stony mask, but his eyes looked worried. “Officer Hammond,” he said, approaching. “What brings you to our little resort?”
“Your little resort is missing a security guard,” Hammond said. “In case you weren’t aware.”
“You know about that? Yes, I am aware of it. Mario failed to show up for work this evening. We had to leave the gate open and untended, but I’m certain it will be just for a short while. Surely that’s not a matter for the Palm Springs police, however? I’m expecting Mario any minute.”
“I wouldn’t expect him, if I were you. Mario’s not going anywhere right now, except to the morgue.”
Frederick’s mouth formed an astonished O. He put a hand to his chest. “That’s… that’s dreadful,” he said, taken aback. Then getting himself under control again, he said hotly, “This is outrageous. Three deaths now, and what are you doing about it?”
“What I’m doing right now is, I want to take a look at that security room.”
Frederick drew himself up haughtily. “Do you have a warrant?”
“No, but I can get one pretty quick, if you want to play it that way. Meanwhile, we’ll take care of your security problem for you. I’ll have a couple of black-and-whites parked at the gate, nobody in, nobody out. If you’d prefer to handle it that way.”
They engaged in a brief staring match. Frederick blinked first. He sighed in a long-suffering way. “No, that won’t be necessary. But why do you think you need to search there? If you’ve already got a body, it means you found him somewhere else. What do you suppose you could find? It’s just a room for the security guard to sit and watch the gates.”
“I don’t know what I’ll find until I find it,” Hammond said. “You might as well come along,” he told Tom and Stanley. “Maybe you’ll see something I don’t.”
“Well, I’m coming too,” Frederick said.
Hammond gave him a cool look. “Sure. It’s probably locked anyway. You can save us busting the door down.”
THEY LEFT the club and started in the direction of the security office, Hammond leading the way. “So,” he said to Stanley, “you said somebody mentioned this Mario to you earlier.”
“A young man named Larson. He’s the one who said he saw this Mario giving Barry head, but I’ve been thinking about that—it doesn’t sound right, does it? I mean, Larson’s pretty good-looking, and Barry turned him down….”
“So Larson says,” Tom said.
Frederick was trailing behind them, but close enough to hear the exchange. “Larson? Our Larson? He’s not the most reliable person,” he said.
Stanley thought about Larson. “Maybe not. He did strike me as a little flaky. But let’s suppose that he’s telling the truth. In which case, why was Barry giving the gift to a lowly security guard who couldn’t pay the kind of money Barry was used to getting? Larson suggested maybe it was a uniform fetish, but that doesn’t work for me. I could see it if it were a uniformed cop….”
“Jeez, you’re not suggesting that cops might play hide the salami, are you?” Hammond asked with exaggerated surprise.
“Oh, please. Are you forgetting I was a policeman?”
Hammond grunted. It might have been a smothered laugh, even. “I guess I was forgetting that.”
“Or, say, not a cop. Maybe a Marine. There’s a Marine base not far away, didn’t you tell us that?” he asked Frederick.
“Twentynine Palms. Just over the mountain.”
“Well, so there’re Marines available here, I’m sure. Or even a biker in full leather drag, I could see that. Lots of gay men turn on to bikers. But come on, a security guard? That’d be about as much of a turn-on for a uniform queen as a plumber or the mailman.”
“Personally I never got turned on by a mailman,” Hammond said, “but there’s a lady walks the beat downtown, fills out her uniform just fine.”
“You know,” Stanley said dryly, “I don’t mind straight men if they’re not too obvious.”
Another grunt that might have been a smothered laugh.
The security room was locked. Reluctantly, Frederick produced a ring of keys and unlocked it, and made as if to precede them inside, but Hammond put up a beefy hand. “We’ll take it from here, thanks,” he said.
“I am the manager,” Frederick started to say, but Hammond forestalled him in a no-nonsense tone.
“For all I know, this might be a crime scene. First rule of a crime scene, don’t contaminate it. The more people moving around, the greater the chance of contamination.”
“But you’re going in?” Frederick asked of Tom.
“They’re pros,” Hammond answered for him. “Stay close, though. W
e’ll whistle if we need you.”
Frederick looked not at all pleased with this turn of events, but he stepped aside, only glowering at Tom and Stanley as they followed Hammond inside. As if to underscore his position, Hammond firmly closed the door after them, leaving an unhappy manager to wait outside.
The room was small, and at first glance, there wasn’t much to see. A chair, a desk, a monitor that showed the front gate with an intercom beside it and a button that clearly opened the gate. A magazine lay facedown on the desk. Hammond picked it up with a pencil. Nude men. He dropped it quickly.
“Didn’t really expect to see blood stains,” Hammond said, though he sounded disappointed. “Not much chance really that he was killed here. Too likely to be witnesses. All those cars driving through.”
“Maybe not,” Stanley said. “I expect most of the people passing through the gate don’t even look this way.”
“Well, you said somebody saw him going to town on a tube steak,” Hammond said.
“Yes, so we heard,” Stanley said. He looked more carefully around the room. “What’s this door, do you think?”
They all three stared at the door in the back wall. “Must be some kind of closet,” Hammond said. “Not enough building for anything else.” He tried the door and found it locked. “Go get that queenie manager?” he asked. “We need to take a look-see.”
“Don’t bother, I can handle it,” Tom said. He took his lock picks out of his pocket. “Just happen to have these on me,” he said in response to Hammond’s raised eyebrows.
“Handy,” Hammond said in a dry voice. Technically, Tom was breaking the law, but since the policeman was as eager to see what was behind the door as Tom was….
Tom had the door unlocked in a matter of seconds and pulled it open, stepping aside for Hammond to have the first look, but Stanley crowded close behind him to peer past his shoulder. His eyes went wide.
“They’ve got security cameras,” he said, voicing what they all could see. “A whole array of them.” A bank of monitors filled the back wall. “This entire place is wired for video.”
A Deadly Kind of Love Page 12