“I guess I heard that,” Kaufman said, “but I never associated anything about Coach Gahain with the mob.”
“How would you know?” Manguel asked.
Kaufman said, “I don’t suppose those guys advertised themselves as being mob-connected on their Web site.”
Manguel said, “It’s not funny.”
“Get a grip,” Kaufman ordered.
Natlik said, “I think presuming we’re in some kind of danger because of what we did is irrational. I’m pissed about it, but it’s just pictures.”
Voronezh asked, “Has anybody tried the Internet sites to see what’s actually on them?”
“I did,” Manguel said. “I thought I might have recognized a couple guys from a few of the teams we had meets with, but I didn’t recognize anybody from our program. As the cops go through them, they’ll be able to notify the colleges by the uniforms. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“We’ve got to try and look at every picture they took,” Voronezh said.
“We found a huge storage facility full of possible porn,” Scott said. “The police are never going to let you look through it.”
Natlik said, “My lawyer said we might be able to get some kind of court order. The cops said all that stuff might be evidence in a murder case.”
“Nobody’s going to care about whether we were naked or not,” Kaufman said. “A year from now, no one’s even going to remember our names connected with this.”
“None of you knew or were suspicious about this beforehand?” I realized as soon as I asked it that this was a fatuous question. Why would anybody admit this in front of witnesses? Then again, maybe somebody secretly knew and had been afraid to tell until now. So I quickly added, “Or heard a rumor or got a notion about what Ethan was up to?”
They all shook their heads.
I asked, “Did he ever try and seduce any of you?”
Head shakes no.
I said, “We heard he asked people to make some videos.”
Except for Kaufman, this didn’t seem to be the kind of crowd that would be willing to discuss voluntary participation in pornographic videos. They’d have to be talked to individually, and they would have to trust us far more than they did now.
“I would have made them,” Kaufman offered. “I’ve always wanted to be in a pornographic video.”
“Why?” Natlik asked.
“Why not?” Kaufman responded immediately. “It would be fun. I’d get to fuck women without worrying about commitments or entanglements. I wouldn’t have to talk to them. Maybe I’d get to fuck two or three at the same time. Maybe even do twins. I’ve always fantasized about doing that. I like fucking. I enjoy coming. I’m not afraid of sex. Maybe doing a video would lead to some great sex, new things. Plus getting paid for screwing, why not? You guys are overreacting. It’s just naked pictures.”
The others denied being offered roles in videos or being willing to make them.
Floyd Nelis spoke up for the first time. “It’s just not right. It’s a violation of who we are. We’re amateur athletes. We were just kids. He took a bit of our childhood away from us.”
“We’re not really kids,” Natlik said. “We know what the world’s like.”
“You really think it’s that bad?” Kaufman asked.
“Good and bad aren’t the real issues,” Voronezh said. “He took away my choices. I don’t like it. If there are pictures of me, I want them. I want all the copies I can get my hands on. Then I’m going to destroy them.”
Kaufman said, “If they’re on the Internet, anyone can get them.”
“We could get an injunction,” Fresten began, “like with that Napster company.”
Kaufman said, “Logistically tough to shut down an operation set up in the Internet ozone.”
Fresten said, “I think part of the problem is that people are going to think we did this willingly. They’ll presume it was with our consent. Maybe people will think we’re gay. No offense to you guys, but still, you know what I mean.”
Kaufman said, “You were changing clothes, for Christ’s sake. What’s the big fucking deal?”
“Some rumors say they caught guys pissing,” Natlik said.
“So fucking what?” Kaufman demanded.
Natlik said, “You may want to be a porn star. I don’t. You could never understand how the rest of us feel.”
“Now it’s feelings,” Kaufman sneered. “Bullshit!”
Natlik said, “I’m going to sue. Coach Gahain had to support all those ex-wives and kids, and he sure lived a rich lifestyle. I’m going to make him pay.”
“It’ll be his estate that pays,” Scott pointed out. “The only people who will be out money will be those ex-wives and kids.”
Natlik looked as if he hadn’t thought of this. The other seven of them grumbled for a while about the unfairness of the world and getting even in some vague way. Other than suing somebody, they didn’t have much of a plan. I wasn’t sure there was much of a plan they could have or needed to have.
I asked, “Did Ethan ever mention somebody named Mike? The last words he said were ‘I love you, Mike.’ I’d like to find out who that was, and if he has any connection to the murder.”
They all looked thoughtful. Natlik said, “I think maybe one of the starting basketball players at Lafayette last year was named Mike.”
Kaufman said, “Wasn’t one of the pitchers on the baseball team named Mike?”
Voronezh said, “Maybe it was a kid from one of his classes. There had to be lots of Mikes.”
Fresten said, “If his last words were those, he must have been gay.”
Natlik asked, “Do you really think there’s any significance to him saying that?”
“It means for sure he was gay,” Kaufman said.
“I’m not sure exactly what it means,” I said. “I just want to find this guy.”
No one knew anything else. After fifteen more minutes, they began to leave. When they were all gone, Scott and I decided to eat. This restaurant was as good a place as any. We were just finishing when Floyd Nelis returned. He was nearly as tall as Voronezh and thinner than the others. He was a swimmer. He came up to our table.
“Can I sit down?” he asked.
We moved a chair over for him. He clenched and unclenched long, thin fingers together. Finally, he hunched over the table close to us and said, “I need help. You guys are part of this. You seem to know what you’re doing. You knew this Ethan Gahain better than I did. He wasn’t really my coach. I was in the swimming program. Maybe you can help me.”
We leaned closer.
Nelis announced in a voice barely above a whisper, “I made a video for him.” His face flamed scarlet. “I really fucked up.”
Perhaps literally, I thought. I asked, “How did you happen to do that?”
“It started when I accidentally found out about his secret tapings. I walked back into the locker room unexpectedly before a meet last year at the University of Iowa. He didn’t seem real upset at what I saw.”
“What did you see, exactly?” I asked.
“I saw him setting up a bunch of gym bags and equipment with a camera hidden in the middle of all of it.”
Scott asked, “What did he say?”
“He was real calm about the whole thing. I don’t think it was the first time he’d been caught. I was flabbergasted. He began talking to me, real fast and low. He always spoke in this soft, deep voice, you know, kind of fatherly and comforting. He sat next to me on the team bus on the way home. He offered to put me in videos. You know how it is with amateur athletes. Nobody has any money. If you want real coaching and good facilities, you’ve got to pay. It cost one hell of a lot. It was a lot of cash. I agreed not to tell anybody what I saw.”
“Why didn’t you just blackmail him?” I asked. “What he was doing was clearly out of bounds.”
“I could never do that. Blackmail’s illegal. I’m a decent guy. I saw a chance to make some money. It was like working for a liv
ing, a little. I was getting paid for doing something, not trying to do something against the law. It might be immoral, but I know it’s not illegal to be in a porn movie.”
“What exactly did you do?” I asked.
“I didn’t have sex with anyone. No offense, you guys, but I’m not gay. He kept promising he’d set me up in videos with women. He never did. He kept trying to talk me into making videos with guys. I think that Josh Durst was the one he used a lot for making it with straight guys.”
“Josh made videos?”
“Sure. He worked the cameras some, starred in a few, and acted as, you know, one of those guys on porn sets who helps keep the guys turned on.”
I wanted Josh Durst found fast.
Scott asked, “How did the operation work?”
“When I was there, they used two cameras. Coach Gahain held one, and Josh had the other. The production took a whole lot more time than I thought. I did it twice in his house in St. Louis and once in some condo in Chicago. I remember most two things. That the rooms were cold and that it was pretty boring. They took forever to make sure the light settings were perfect, getting the camera angles right. Coach Gahain never really said a whole lot. Josh hardly stopped talking. I think he was trying to make me comfortable, put me at ease while I sat around naked or in my underwear. He did help. Once they took a video of me mostly with my clothes on sitting on a couch. Josh asked me questions about sex, like details about my first time beating off. I never talk about that kind of stuff, that’s sick, but they were paying me money, and Josh told some stories, too. Maybe they were true. So, then I got undressed. Mostly they taped me beating off while I watched a straight porn video. They were actually pretty nice, pretty patient. He paid me a thousand dollars for about six hours’ work each time.”
Hell of a scale to pay on.
“That was it?” I asked.
“Yeah. We could never agree on the details for making movies with more people. I got my money. I figured if I needed more, I could press them to put me in a straight video. They said I’d be more likely to be used in videos if I was willing to make them with men and women.” Nelis shrugged. “I wasn’t.”
“Where was the condo in Chicago?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not from here. I remember it wasn’t far from the lake.”
“Did any of the other guys in the group that was here make a video?” Scott asked.
“I sure didn’t hear them ever say anything,” Nelis said. “Derrick would have been the one I would have picked to try it.”
I said, “I would have picked all the others before you.”
Nelis grinned. “You gotta watch out for us quiet types.”
I asked, “Did you know anybody else who was ever taped?”
“No.”
I asked, “Did you ever know any of the business aspects of the operation? How the tapes were packaged, sold, or distributed?”
“Nah. I didn’t care anything about that. I figured my parents would never see me or know about it, so it made no difference to me. Now, I’m really worried. Me being caught naked has probably been all over the Internet, but maybe it hasn’t. If it’s possible, I don’t want what I did to get out. I guess some of my buddies would be envious if I did straight porn, but simply beating off isn’t going to convince anyone I’m less than a fool.”
“When did you do this?” I asked.
“I did the first tape about a year ago, the last a few months ago.”
“Do you have any idea of what Ethan or Cormac or Josh might have been afraid of recently?”
“Not really. Coach has been pretty much the same at practice. He was never a real emotional guy. He’d go all fatherly on you. His method helped me a lot.”
I asked, “You ever see him argue with anybody either at the school or with strangers at meets?”
“He used to feud with some of the other coaches on the opposing teams, but that was normal. People are competitive, but nobody really takes most of that rivalry stuff seriously. At least not seriously enough to kill somebody over it.”
Scott said, “When you came back, you said you wanted advice. What can we do for you?”
“I guess I really just wanted to talk to someone about it, and …” Nelis shook his head. “I don’t know what to do about those videos existing.”
“There’s not much you can do,” Scott said. “Chalk it up to experience, and get on with your life.”
“What if people find out?”
“You have no control over that,” Scott said. “You made a decision back then. You make decisions now.”
Nelis left.
19
On the way back to the Loop I called our answering service. My mother had left a message asking me to give her a call.
She said, “Ernie Gahain wants to talk to you. Caroline said it was important. Ethan’s parents found out this morning that Ethan owned a condo on the north side. Ernie and Caroline went there at Perry and Rachel’s request. I think Ernie and Caroline found something they want to talk to you about.”
“I learned about the condo just a few minutes ago. I wonder what they found.”
“Your sister wouldn’t tell me, so I suspect it’s more about the pornography connection.”
I agreed with her about that. I didn’t blame Caroline for not telling my mother. I hadn’t been tremendously eager to discuss porn with her either. She gave me the address on Buckingham, a half block west of Broadway.
As we cruised down the Kennedy Expressway, I called the police to see if they would give me their version of the meeting with Donny and his parents. After I dialed, I pushed the speakerphone button. We had one of those sets where you didn’t have to hold the phone to talk.
Detective Rohter answered our call: “I heard you found another dead body in St. Louis.”
“You heard correctly,” I said.
“What happened?”
I tried to eliminate all rancor from my voice as I said, “I have no doubt that you talked to the police in St. Louis. I’m sure they told you what they know, certainly everything they know about us and our involvement. I’m sure you shared all the information you had about us from up here. If you really want to make an issue of our involvement or try to turn us into suspects, why don’t you simply say that instead of playing some kind of gotcha game with us.”
I figured he’d simply hang up on me. He didn’t. Maybe he was working under the assumption that if you’ve got a suspect irritated and talking, you’re on the side of the angels.
“Who needs help from who?” Rohter asked.
I drew a deep breath and backed off: “Perhaps we should share information.” It was pretty clear we were at least on the periphery on any suspect list. How could we not be? Your average amateur sleuth seldom had a heap of bodies piling up such as we were beginning to accumulate. I figured maybe if I unbent a little, the cop would be a little more forthcoming. So I gave Rohter a brief version of finding Cormac’s body.
When I finished, he said, “Two bodies in twenty-four hours. Most people don’t find one dead body in their lifetime.”
“What can I say? Neither Scott nor I killed anybody, although for my money, I’d be suspicious of any amateur sleuth. I think it would be great if in the very last two-hour episode of your ordinary detective television series, it turned out the amateur sleuth committed all the murders, and he or she is the greatest serial killer in history.” He didn’t seem to be even the slightest bit amused by my observation. “Scott and I are just trying to look out for my parents’ best friends’ interests.”
Rohter harrumphed at this.
“What happened with my nephew?” Scott asked.
“They were quarreling when they walked into the station. Father and son yelled at each other intermittently. Mother kept trying to calm them down. During the intervals when we finally got them settled down, we didn’t get much information.”
“What were they fighting about?” Scott asked.
“The boy kept accusing them of not t
rusting him. The father kept talking about how he kept running away proved their need to keep a tight rein on him.”
“But they calmed down?” Scott asked.
“More like they had an outside group to focus their anger on for a little while. Even with his parents around, the kid was not cooperative. Hiram Carpenter seemed like he hated us as much as he hated his kid. He kept telling Donny to talk to us and then piling on what sure sounded like right-wing militia paranoia. Like, trust the cops, but hate the government. Weird.”
Scott said, “I don’t think he actually hates his own son. He is right-wing, but I don’t think he’s in any nut group.”
“His kid could be,” Rohter said. “Their crap is all over the Internet. If the kid was hearing a version of a nut group’s pitch from his dad, why wouldn’t he be susceptible to it when he found it on the Internet?”
As the cop spoke, we exited the expressway at Addison just after the junction. Scott drove east on Addison.
Scott said, “The kid did not come all the way from Georgia to kill somebody he never met.”
Rohter said, “I’m still waiting to decide on that. I sure think the kid has a tendency to violence.”
“Why do you say that?” Scott asked.
“They didn’t tell you what happened?” Rohter asked.
“No,” Scott said.
Rohter said, “He hit his mother. He didn’t just slap her or accidentally bump her, he hauled off and belted her.”
Stunned silence on our end.
“We’d just asked him why he hadn’t called for help, mentioning that maybe if he had, medical assistance might have arrived in time. Mrs. Carpenter began to chide him about what he should have done. I thought she was being pretty gentle in what she was saying. If he’d of been my kid, I’d’ve been ready to beat the shit out of him. He just shut his eyes one second. The next he was on his feet with a closed fist. The blow glanced off her ear. He cursed and spat at her and ran.”
“What did Hiram do?” Scott asked.
“He ran after the kid. He’s big, but his son weighs maybe half as much and was much quicker.”
“The police didn’t stop Donny?” I asked.
“He was gone too fast. Nobody expected the kid to run. He wasn’t in cuffs.”
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