by Dorien Grey
“Do you have any idea where this happened?”
He shook his head. “It was in the woods somewhere. There was a sign I saw when we drove in—Prichert Park, I think it was. It was a long way.”
Prichert Park was a forest preserve about fifteen miles from downtown.
“How did you get here?”
“I walked,” he said casually.
“All the way?” I asked, incredulously.
He nodded. “I didn’t have any other way. There weren’t many cars out, and I didn’t dare try to hitchhike looking like this. It took me from the time he drove off ’til now to walk here. I got kind of lost for awhile until I got to the top of a hill and I could see the buildings downtown here, so I knew which way to go.”
“Didn’t you try to get help?”
He shrugged. “While I was walking, just when it was starting to get light out, a police car pulled over to me and asked what I was doing and I told them what had happened to me and they just laughed and said ‘Well, maybe you’ll know better next time’ and then they rolled up the window and drove off. And later on I came to a gas station that was closed but the outside bathroom door was unlocked and I went in there and washed myself off and I laid down on the floor for awhile and I think I went to sleep for a little bit, but I’m not sure.”
Then he looked at me and asked, again: “Why would he do that to me? What did I ever do to him?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, of course, but I vowed that if I were ever able to find that scumbag, I’d make damn sure he never did it again, to anyone.
I glanced quickly at my watch and got up from the couch. “You stay right here. I’ll be right back.”
Just as I reached the door, I had a sudden thought, and said: “Since you were with the guy three times, did you by any chance find out his name?”
Jonathan looked down at the floor and shook his head. I reached for the doorknob and had the door halfway open when I heard him say: “I do remember his license plate number, though.”
Chapter 5
While Jonathan was eating—and watching him made me wonder if it could only have been one day since he’d had any food—I dialed City Annex and asked for Lieutenant Richman’s extension. I’d been going to call him anyway, to let him know about the community meeting. But my main thought was of Jonathan. I knew what had happened to him happened a lot more than anyone knew, and that with everything else going on, Lieutenant Richman probably wouldn’t have time for the problems of one unlucky hustler, but he was the highest ranking police officer I knew other than Captain Offermann and I was really, really pissed.
When Richman came on the line, I first told him about the meeting, and he seemed greatly relieved to hear it. Then I told him about Jonathan and about the police car that had just driven off without trying to help him. When I mentioned that Jonathan had gotten the license plate number of the van, and that I intended to find out who it belonged to, Richman asked for it and said he’d check it out. He didn’t have to do that, but it was really nice of him to offer.
“And tell your friend I apologize on behalf of the department for how he was treated. He had every right to expect help from the police, and I will personally have the duty rosters and report sheets checked to see which cars were in the area of Prichert Park around dawn. If I can find out which officers might have been involved, would your friend be willing to come down to the Annex for a personal apology from them?”
“I’m sure he would, Lieutenant.” Richman had definitely moved up another rung in my admiration. “Is there anything else I can do right now on…this other matter?”
“Not at the moment, I don’t think. Just keep your ears open, and please call me right away if you hear anything we might need to know.”
“I’ll do that. And thanks again.”
“Thank you, too, Dick.”
Jonathan, who had been sitting across from me using my desk as a table, had almost polished off everything on his plate—well, Styrofoam tray—and had paused with plastic fork in midair to stare at me as I replaced the receiver on the hook.
“Wow,” he said, with a look of little-boy admiration on his battered face. “You know some important people, huh?”
“I know some very good people,” I said, and watched him finish eating. When he had taken the last morsel off the tray and finished the second carton of milk he got up, looked around for my wastebasket, and very carefully went over to put the empty containers in it.
“That was really good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He just stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do next, and I motioned him back to the chair.
“So where are you staying?”
He looked a little embarrassed and he glanced up idly at the ceiling as though there were something of interest there. “Nowhere, really.”
“Nowhere?”
He shook his head.
“If I’d had a place to go, I never would have come here and bothered you. Usually when a guy takes me home I’ll ask him if I can spend the night there. Sometimes they let me. I keep my stuff in a locker at the bus station. Sometimes one of the other guys from Hughie’s lets me crash at his place. I went there first, but he wasn’t home.”
“Do you have any money in with your things at the bus station?”
He sighed and shrugged. “No. That guy took it all.”
Shit!
“Did you check out that busboy job?” I knew the answer before I asked it.
He again looked embarrassed and dropped his head to look at the missing buttons on his shirt. “I was going to,” he said, like a little kid caught doing something he shouldn’t. “But then I thought of all the money I could make hustling, and…I’m really sorry. I should have.” Then he gave me a sad little look that made me want to reach out and hug him. “I don’t think I want to hustle any more.”
*
I called Reverend Mason at the M.C.C. to thank him for letting us use the room for the meeting, but with another purpose in mind, as well. I’d remembered that the M.C.C. had just started Haven House, a shelter for runaway and abused gay and lesbian teenagers, and I asked if there were any chance of getting Jonathan in. I explained his situation briefly, and the Reverend said the house was nearly full already, but that I should bring Jonathan by, to see what might be done for him.
Before we left my office, I reached into a drawer of my desk and got out my Polaroid. I wanted to document Jonathan’s injuries just in case the bastard who did this to him was ever caught. I handed him the morning paper and told him to hold it up for the first photo as documentation of the date. When I asked him to take off his shirt, I saw he had bruises all over his upper body as well as his face. The guy had really done a number on him, and I was even more certain now that I definitely wanted to have a little private chat with the bastard who had done it.
*
I drove Jonathan to the bus station, asked him for his locker number and the combination to the lock, and told him to wait in the car while I went in. He’d gotten enough stares as we walked from my office to the car: He didn’t need any more.
I then took him to my place…okay, okay, you don’t have to say it…so he could shower and change clothes. He only had two other shirts and one other pair of pants in his small backpack, and I was too much heavier than him for anything I had to fit him properly.
“Can I use some of your aftershave?” he called from the bathroom.
“Help yourself.” Shortly thereafter, I heard a couple of short “Ow!”s as the alcohol touched his scraped and bruised face.
The aftershave came into the room before he did, but he looked a lot better than he had when I first saw him in the hallway. And battered and bruised as he was, he was still really cute.
Don’t go there, Hardesty! my mind cautioned, and for once I agreed.
We drove to the M.C.C. and I noted as we got out of the car that the bungalow directly next door to the church had a small sign over the door say
ing “Haven House.” Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were sitting on the steps, talking. They waved to us as we walked up to the door to the church, and we waved back, then entered. No one seemed to be there, though we checked the office and even went downstairs to the Sunday School room where the community meeting had been held. Finding no one, we were coming back up the steps when we saw Reverend Mason…Tony…coming in the front door. He had on torn, paint-spattered Levi’s and an equally paint-spattered Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt. I gathered he’d been working.
“Jack and Marie told me they’d seen you coming in,” he said. “Sorry I wasn’t here, but we’re still doing a lot of work on the house.” He smiled and shook hands with both Jonathan and me, and seemed to be totally oblivious to Jonathan’s all-too-obvious bruises and black eye.
“Let’s go into the office.”
We followed him into a small room just inside the front door, opposite the stairway.
“Sit, please,” he said, smiling, and we did.
“So how old are you, Jonathan?”
“Twenty-one…” he started to say, but caught me looking at him and looked quickly away.
“Nineteen,” he amended.
Tony pursed his lips slightly. “You’re just a bit older than most of our kids. How long have you been hustling?”
Despite the bruises that covered a good portion of his face, I could see Jonathan blush. “About a month.”
“Are you a runaway? Did your folks throw you out?”
Jonathan shook his head. “No, sir. I came here on my own. I’d never been away from home before and I figured it was time I got out and made something of myself.”
Tony smiled, gently, then looked at me and sighed. “We are, as I told you on the phone, Dick, near capacity already. You’d be amazed at how many gay throwaway kids there are out there on the streets.” Then he looked at Jonathan, who again was looking at the floor, anticipating being told there was no room for him at the inn.
“Are you willing to work, Jonathan?”
The youngster lifted up his head immediately. “Sure. There’s a place in Dick’s building that’s looking for a busboy, and…”
“Good. All our kids, even the very youngest, are expected to find some kind of outside work. But I meant are you willing to work here, too, to help us finish Haven House? We’re in the process of converting the attic into two more bedrooms, and…”
“Sure!” Jonathan said, eagerly. “I helped a guy back home fix up his place and we even built a game room in his basement and I put up paneling and helped him build a couple walls and…”
Tony gave me another quick smile and a quick but gentle hand-raise to turn off Jonathan’s motor.
“Well, then, if you don’t mind living in an unfinished attic until we get the rooms done, we’d be happy to have your help.”
Jonathan, boy puppy-dog, was back.
“Wow! That’s great! Thank you!”
Tony looked slowly from Jonathan to me and back again. “Now you understand, particularly since you’ll be the oldest of our kids, that this arrangement is only temporary, until you can earn enough money at an outside job to get your own place. And even with an outside job, you’ll have work obligations here as well, and we can’t accept excuses for not meeting them. Is that agreeable to you?”
“Sure! Anything!”
I could tell that Tony could see in Jonathan pretty much what I did—a nice kid who was not only in need of help, but who could appreciate it when it was offered to him.
“And of course we do have some rules which cannot be broken: No drugs, no drinking; no fights—you have a problem, you bring it to me. Understood?”
Jonathan nodded eagerly.
Tony slapped his hands on his knees, got up from his chair.
“Okay, then, let’s go get you settled in.”
Jonathan practically leapt from his chair and, having momentarily forgotten his bruises, winced in pain.
I got up, too, soaking in a bit of the glow that was practically radiating from the young man. We all left the office and, outside the door to the church, I shook hands with Tony and offered my hand to Jonathan. He looked at me questioningly. “Aren’t you coming?”
I shook my head, oddly touched that he’d expected me to. “No, Jonathan, I’ve got to get back to work. You’ll be fine. You let me know when you get that job, okay?”
Tony put his arm around the young man’s shoulders and gave him a quick—but not too rough—squeeze. “We’ll see to it,” he said.
I started down the steps and heard Jonathan say “Dick?”
I turned back to him. “Yeah?”
“Can I hug you?”
I moved up to him, open-armed. He grabbed me in a bear hug which surely must have hurt his sore chest. Then he backed away.
“Thanks again, Dick!” he said happily. “I’ll come see you.”
“You do that,” I said, and turned again to walk to my car. For some reason, I almost had a lump in my throat. Oh, Hardesty, my mind sighed…you are such a marshmallow!
*
There was a message waiting for me when I got back to the office: Lieutenant Richman. I returned his call immediately.
“Lieutenant,” I said when I heard his voice, “it’s Dick Hardesty. What did you find out?”
There was a very slight pause and then: “I tell you what, Dick, I’ve got some work on my desk I’ve really got to get to. Are you going to be home this evening? Maybe I could give you a call there, if you don’t mind.”
Mind, hell! I thought. Don’t bother to call, just on come over and wear your cellophane pants!
“Sure. I’ll be home around five thirty.”
“Fine. I’ll probably give you a call sometime later then.”
We exchanged goodbyes, leaving me with a definite feeling that something was very strange about that call. Of course, my crotch was all in favor of its having some subtle sexual meaning, but the rest of me just thought it was unusual, somehow.
I tried to devote the rest of the day to the things I was being paid to do, like tracking down the source of a letter a client’s boss had received accusing my client of being a child molester. The boss hadn’t believed it for an instant, and had handed it over to the client, who wanted the source rooted out so he could sue whomever it was for slander (and, having the letter in hand, he’d probably have a good case). I’d pretty much narrowed it down to the ex of the client’s current partner, who apparently blamed the client for stealing his lover, though they’d not been together for about two years before the client even met the lover. Some people just don’t know when it’s time to put out the torch.
*
I got home at about 5:20 and had just fixed myself a Manhattan when the phone rang.
“Dick Hardesty.” I said.
“Dick, it’s Mark Richman. Am I interrupting anything?”
I wish! I thought. “Not at all, Lieutenant. I just got home a while ago.”
“Good. Look, we really have to talk.”
“Name the time and place.”
“Well,” he said, “my wife and kids are out of town…” Whoopee! my crotch shouted “…so I was just going to stop somewhere and grab a pizza, then maybe we could meet somewhere a bit later.”
“You’re welcome to come over here,” I said. He had, after all, been to my apartment once before, on another case. Yeah! Yeah! Good idea! my crotch panted.
“I’m glad you offered. Actually, under the circumstances, it’s probably not a good idea for us to be seen in public together too often—no offense, which I’m sure you realize.”
I did, completely. With a virtual civil war developing inside the department, discretion was indeed the better part of valor. Richman had to maintain at least the appearance of neutrality for as long as he could, and for him to be seen too often with a card-carrying faggot might threaten his neutral image.
“Let’s go one farther,” I suggested. “I haven’t even begun to think about dinner, but pizza sounds good. Why don’t I
order one in and we can talk while we eat.”
There was only the slightest pause, and then: “…Uh, sure; that sounds fine. Do you drink beer? I’m off duty and on my own time, so…I can stop and pick some up.”
I’m not saying a word, my crotch whispered.
“That’d be great. Have any preferences in your pizza?”
“I like everything.”
I’m still not saying anything.
“Okay. I’ll call now. About how long before you get here?”
“I’m just getting gas, and calling from the station. I see a liquor store across the street, so I can just run over there now. Maybe 25 minutes?”
“Good. You know how to find the place, right?”
“I remember. See you shortly, then.”
He remembers, my crotch snickered.
Oh for the love of God, drop it! my mind commanded. So I did.
*
I called Momma Rosa’s and ordered a large Supreme with everything (I had a can of anchovies in the kitchen, just in case), and when the bell rang almost exactly twenty-five minutes later, I didn’t know if it was Richman or the pizza. I buzzed whoever it was, took a bill out of my wallet so I wouldn’t have to fumble for it later, and walked to the door, anticipating the knock. When it came, I opened the door to find Lieutenant Richman standing there in his civies, holding a six-pack of imported bock beer in his left hand. He offered his right for a handshake, then came in and I closed the door.
“I figured you for a bock man. Hope I was right.”