The Complete Matt Jacob Series

by Klein, Zachary;

  Jonathan stared at me open-mouthed. “You never found out about my relationship with Peter, did you?”

  “Nothing more than what you told me. I guess you didn’t tell me everything.” I was surprised at my coolness. Despite the shock of Darryl’s death and its similarity to Peter’s, I wasn’t ready to white-coat Barrie.

  His expression didn’t look any better, but a small ironic smile played at his lips. “I was certain you had discovered my relationship with Peter and could understand why I’m so upset.” He reached forward, stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray, and at once lit another.

  I finished mine and did likewise. “You thought wrong,” I said. “But I’m here now.” I left little doubt as I took my leather and placed it on the floor.

  Jonathan stared at the gun but made no comment. When he met my eyes some of his strength had returned. “I lied to you when I said I’d moved into The End after Peter’s death. I moved into the neighborhood because of Peter. I was a cruiser; he worked the street. He made his money selling his body to suburban men in big cars—like me.”

  I started to interrupt, but he waved me quiet. “Just wait. Before you start judging, you ought to know what you’re condemning.”

  “I haven’t condemned anything yet.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. I’ve been down this path enough to know it’s one-way.” He sounded resigned. “Peter hustled since he’d been ten. He was fifteen when we met and no amount of smoothness could hide, at least from me, the desperation of his life.” He bowed his head and said quietly, “It wasn’t very different from my own.

  “I grew up in the Forties and Fifties”—he raised his head and met my eyes—”when growing up gay was worse torture than now. A world of locked doors, fear, denial. By the time I was twenty, the hiding had become self-hate. By thirty, the hate played out in highway rest areas, public restrooms, and backseats of cars. Anonymous sex was the most someone like me could hope for.”

  He took a deep drag and flicked his ashes toward the bowl. “By the time I was thirty-five, cruising had nothing to do with pleasure. Sex was simply a way to forget about my life.”

  I couldn’t keep my doubts, or my prejudice, quiet. “Look, Jonathan, I didn’t come here to learn about your sex life. I came here because your name came up in a conversation about drug-dealing. You tell me two boys you fucked died the same way, one with coke in his pocket. Sounds like I’m at the right address.”

  His face turned red. “Whoever connected me with drugs is a damn liar! Whatever my sexuality, I am not about the business of destroying lives.” His eyes scratched at my face. “You can think what you damn well like!”

  “I think you’ve run drugs for twenty years. You used Peter until you were through with him, then did the same with Darryl.”

  He was on his feet instantly. “You filthy lunatic! You’re disgusted by my relationships so you turn me into a sick, murdering queer! Someone like you might really make me kill. Just get the hell out of here!”

  He stood over me, panting heavily, his eyes full of scorn. I let the moment ride and pushed the pieces around the board. “Sit down, Jonathan. I believe you.”

  He debated with himself, but returned to the couch.

  “I’m not gay-bashing,” I said. “It’s you I’m having trouble with.”

  Jonathan met my angry stare. “Me and everything you ever heard about old gay men and young boys.” He tossed his head and snorted. “I told you this was a one-way street. But I’ll try it anyhow. You know what happens to pretty boys, don’t you? Well, Peter was approaching a hustler’s middle age. If anything, our relationship kept him out of jail. And, frankly, I don’t know who was the benefactor to whom. My relationship with Peter taught me that when you care about someone and they appreciate you for it, you have less time to hate yourself.” He looked away. “More time to learn to love.”

  Jonathan’s face sagged as he stood up and walked to the fire. From my seat he appeared to be embraced by the flames.

  His bone-marrow honesty was compelling, loosening my ties to the Moral Majority. I knew the score in The End, if not the play-by-play. I still didn’t know what the hell I was involved in, but Jonathan no longer reminded me of someone from the newspapers. “Sometimes power gets confused with love,” I said.

  He stepped around a short stack of books and wearily sat back down. “Yes, it does. And I’m sure there was that between us. But don’t discount the awareness and strength Peter brought to the relationship.” He read the expression on my face. “Don’t look so dubious. The street taught Peter plenty, despite his years.

  “If our difference in age and stature had become destructive I would have done what was needed. You see, Matt, I could be honest and do right by Peter. He had been nothing but abused his entire life. I could give to him. To both of them. Three lives were going to be better off. How many relationships, of any sort, can you say that about?”

  I tried hard to smell bullshit, but couldn’t. Still, Jonathan had had plenty of time to twist his theories under the lights. I hadn’t lost my skepticism, just its fire. “So say I buy it?”

  He waved his hand. “There’s been too much blood under the bridge for me to sell you anything.”

  “That’s an interesting expression.”

  He looked as if he’d been slapped. Talking about Peter had given him relief from the present. “Did Darryl deal drugs?” I asked.

  He sat back in his seat, his anger seeping into confusion. “Not that I knew.” “You had suspicions?”

  He shook his head. “Have, not had.” “Go on.”

  “I told you. The police found him with cocaine.” “You didn’t know anything about him selling?”

  He almost got angry again but checked himself. “I knew he sometimes had small quantities. That’s all.” His hand swiped at the air in front of his chest.

  “But now you wonder? What did Darryl do for money?” “He was a musician.”

  “Around here?” “Here and Florida.”

  I shook my head and shrugged.

  “It’s easy to see today,” he said, low, bitterness in his tone. “But I never had cause to question.” He looked at me defiantly. “And even if he did deal, he deserves justice.”

  Justice. I wanted justice for my roll in the snow, Jonathan for Darryl’s death, perhaps Peter’s as well. I didn’t hold out much hope for either of us. “How did the police get your name?”

  He cocked his head. “A friend in the department who knows about my life. It was a courtesy.” “No one asked you to come down and identify the body?”

  “No. Does that mean anything?”

  “It means they probably found family.”

  He looked disconcerted and I watched him squirm unhappily in his seat.

  I got up and looked over his shoulder at the fire. “You didn’t know he had family?” “He told me they were all dead.”

  I shrugged and walked to the fireplace. The flames had settled into a small, steady crackling, and I thought about throwing on another log, but it would probably put the damn thing out. “Sounds like there was a lot you didn’t know.”

  I lit a cigarette. “You may not have known about his dealing, but you’re too smart not to imagine Darryl doing it.” I waited.

  Jonathan read my mind because he joined me at the fire and picked up the tongs. “Last night I began to imagine a lot of things.”

  I walked away from him. I didn’t think he dealt—or murdered. Darryl probably used Jonathan’s initials for cover. It would be easy enough to find out whether J.B. translated into D.H. What wasn’t easy was Barrie’s relationships. “What did Darryl usually drink?”

  “Drink? Screwdrivers, why?”

  I ignored his question, walked over to a mini refrigerator, and opened the door. Six beers lined the back wall. I took one out and twisted the cap off. “You want?”

  He looked over at me from the fireplace. “Thanks.”

  I opened another, walked back to the now blazing flames, and handed him his bo
ttle. The fire licked the outside of the black enamel as we stood red in its light. “Why did you call me?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

  He looked thoughtfully at me, doubt flashing across his face. He closed his eyes, then held the beer against his cheek. “I want you to find Darryl’s killer.”

  I shook my head, watching His face tense. “Can’t get beyond the sex, can you?” he asked bitterly.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, running my hand through my hair. “Face to face is different than reading about it.”

  “More or less titillating?” He gave a sharp, humorless chuckle.

  I hunched up my shoulders, and walked away from the heat of the fire. “The other night someone tried to scare me out of The End with a 4×4. I came here thinking it was you.” I overrode his interrupt. “Whatever my feelings about this conversation, you’re off the list.”

  “Then the only reason you have is my sexuality.”

  I shrugged again. “When you put a live person into a word like ‘pederast’ it loses an edge, but I don’t know if it loses any of its meaning. Mostly it’s none of my business.”

  I gathered my thoughts slowly. “You dropped off my list, but Darryl climbed on. I think he adopted your initials for his drug cover.”

  His eyes searched my face from across the room. “You agree with the police?” I nodded. “Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Either they really do believe it was an accident, or they think it’s drug-related. Easier on them if it’s an accident.”

  “Don’t you think the similarity to Peter’s death a little too coincidental?”

  “We’re not talking back-to-back here, Jonathan. There’s twenty years between the deaths; and the major coincidence is you.” That is, if I discounted Blackhead’s story. Or understood it.

  “I don’t mean you had anything to do with their accidents. As unlikely as the coincidence seems to you, the cops are probably on the money.”

  He didn’t want to believe it. “You don’t think it was suicide?” I asked gently.

  He met my stare. “No, I don’t. I would have known if Darryl was that depressed. He wasn’t.” He shook his head. “Darryl didn’t kill himself.”

  “You seem awfully certain about someone you’ve just discovered had a secret life?”

  Barrie was more emphatic. “Maybe I didn’t know everything about his life, but I’d have known if he was suicidal.” Jonathan lifted the poker toward the fire, then smashed it hard on the rug. “There’s no damn reason for him to be dead!”

  “Is there ever, for anyone? Jonathan, it was probably an accident.”

  “You mean he was too high to save himself?” Jonathan said sarcastically. “What the hell was he doing there? Peter I could understand. It was summer and that’s where they went to swim. But it’s winter now, or damn close.”

  “Grams to dollars, Jonathan, he was there to sell dope. He might have fallen in before he made the sale. The water’s near freezing, and if he hit his head…”

  Still grabbing the poker, he leaped to his feet. For an instant I thought he was going to attack me, but he turned, moved close to the fireplace, and whacked at the flames. “It’s fucking cold in here,” he muttered between hits.

  I gave him a little time before I walked to his side and took the iron from his clenched fist. At first he resisted. “How many times do you have to watch your life fall apart?” he asked helplessly.

  I shrugged; it was a familiar question. “As many times as it does.” Zen Matt.

  We stood quietly as the flame sucked at the dismembered carcass of the sacrificed tree. Occasionally a spark would crackle into the air and we’d flinch, but, other than the fire’s sporadic noise and the infrequent hiss of steam, all was silent.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t at least look into the coincidence?” he finally said.

  “I don’t want to investigate Peter’s death.” I looked at him. “For reasons we’ve already discussed.”

  “That was before Darryl’s death.”

  “Darryl’s accident is twenty years later,” I reminded.

  He dropped the poker on the floor and walked, head down, back to the couch. “That’s what Melanie kept saying.”

  “What exactly does Melanie know?” My voice bleated harshly.

  Jonathan didn’t bother with my tone. “She’s always known that Darryl and I were lovers. I told her about his death and my problem accepting the police’s version.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t push it with her. Quarry’s End brings up enough as it is.”

  “Does she know about you and Peter?”

  He seemed unruffled, though concerned by my sharpness. “To Melanie, Peter was a saint. She was shattered by his accident. He had somehow managed to keep his hustling from her, and I wasn’t going to throw dirt on his life.” He rubbed his face. “I didn’t want to tell her.”

  “About you or him?” My hostility had reawakened; I was suddenly suspicious about Barrie’s relationship with Mel.

  He remained calm in the face of my attitude. “About either of us. Mostly I was concerned about her. Peter’s drowning left a hole inside Melanie that she filled in destructive ways. I wanted to give her a chance to find herself. I had planned on living with both of them, you know, not just Peter.”

  He seemed to be looking inside himself. “It’s impossible for people to understand that, despite the sex, my relationship with Peter was primarily paternal. My relationship with Melanie has only been paternal.”

  “‘Paternal’ is a hard word to swallow.”

  He smiled resignedly. “Then don’t swallow. All I can tell you is what I know.”

  He ignored my visible discomfort. “Until Darryl, I simply avoided enduring relationships. For a long time I was afraid Melanie might interpret closeness with anyone else as abandonment.” A frown passed across his face as he considered something in the past, but all he said was, “There were incidents which reinforced my fears.”

  He wandered into idle thought, then returned to the conversation. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never viewed my years with Melanie as a sacrifice. Our relationship embodies what Peter had only promised. I love her more than I could have imagined loving anyone. She supplies a center to my life I hadn’t thought possible. It hasn’t been a sacrifice, it hasn’t been altruism. It’s been an honest, loving relationship.”

  “Was Darryl the reason she left home?”

  “Not at all. I thought it important that Melanie be on her own. We both did. It’s one thing for a middle-aged man to live a quiet, work-and-home sort of life, another for a woman in her prime.

  “Like any father”—he glanced at me to see if I resisted his description—”I wanted her to have what I didn’t. I wanted her to have an advanced degree. I wanted her to have a career.” He smiled ruefully. “I wanted her to have a family.”

  He paused, a dark look passing across his features. “I had my own agenda as well. The brief time it took me to get involved with Darryl left little doubt of that.”

  I walked over to the small refrigerator and got two more beers. “Can you stoke that thing?” I pointed to the fire.

  Jonathan threw another log onto the low-riding flames. “I forget how cold it gets when the fire dies.”

  His last sentence echoed in the windowless room. “In a way that says it all. For so long, Melanie was enough. Last year, after she moved into her apartment, I met Darryl. It was a surprise to realize I still wanted more from my life.”

  My mind flew to Melanie’s unpacked crates. The move had been more difficult for her than he either realized or acknowledged.

  Barrie returned to his seat. “It was a shock to discover I could still have romantic feelings for someone. When we decided to live together, I felt like hell about getting something out of life that Melanie didn’t have. After a while the guilt faded, but the excitement remained. Until now.” His voice trailed off as he stared at the fire.

  Before I could speak, Jonathan added quie
tly, “All this comes as a shock, doesn’t it? Is that why you don’t want to get involved?”

  I thought for a long moment, then shook my head. “I don’t want to investigate because it’s useless. And because I am involved. You don’t want to push it with Melanie and neither do I. Doing what you ask would rub her face in something that will lead nowhere.”

  My words registered. “Is there something between the two of you?”

  “Something.” I frowned, then added, “I intend to find whoever it was that tried to run me out of The End. Darryl may have been a rung on a ladder I’ll need to climb. If I turn up anything funny about his accident I’ll let you know. But, Jonathan, I honestly don’t expect to.”

  “What do you expect?”

  “I think whoever tried to run me out of The End is drug connected. I expect I’ll discover more about Darryl’s life, not his death.”

  “Will you tell me about that?”

  I ran my hand across my eyes. “Melanie doesn’t need you walking around wounded any longer than necessary.” I leaned forward and picked up my jacket. “Let it rest, Jonathan. It’s hard enough to deal with the death of someone you love without digging into the truth of their life— especially a hidden one.”

  I caught him eyeing me closely, but I’d run out of comfort. I stood up and pulled my jacket on. He stayed seated and said in a wondering tone, “Did you ever feel that things couldn’t be what they seem?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s the quality of Darryl’s death. I’m afraid it will drive me crazy not to know why he died. Maybe, why they both died.”

  The “they” bothered me too. Every time I came up for air, Blackhead’s story papered the wall. And I couldn’t get the seams straight. But that was my problem, not Jonathan’s.

  “If something comes up, Jonathan, I’ll tell you.”

  He nodded in silent agreement. The fire had damped down, and the chill crept back into the room. Jonathan sat lost in his grief. I finished my beer and pulled my jacket tighter. It was time to leave.